Monday, December 12, 2011

The Overcoming Anxiety For ever

If you have recently been diagnosed with anxiety or even just knowing that you are suffering from some anxiety disorder, you're probably feeling scared, depressed and helpless, lonely and very disappointed that the people around you just do not understand what you're going . Overcoming anxiety is not an easy job to do, but there are some practical things you can do to regain control of the senses and his life. In addition, the panic away program is a powerful and effective way to relieve stress and get your life back.
The first thing you should do if you want to overcome fear in order to stop the condemnation of you and your frustration, but do not worry, as you get into this situation. You're dealing with a difficult situation and from that point you should have a positive attitude and focus on how to move forward and feel better. You have to admit that panic attacks and anxiety are medical disorders, and it makes no sense to be dramatic, since the chemical and physical changes in the body are the main cause of this problem. This is just another disease that requires special attention, and you must include all your effort and positive attitude to push the panic away from his life. Understanding the disease and the reasons why this is already an important step in overcoming anxiety. If you experience sensations such as dizziness, nausea, slight dizziness and a pounding heart, and sometimes they even take place simultaneously, the first thing to do is adjust your diet and your body, and then adjust your mind and emotions. In addition, it is necessary on medical examination and treatment and avoid sedatives and buy Valium, because they can only help you in the short term.
Overcoming fear is actually possible, and you must firmly believe this and learn to deal with their concerns in more productive ways, making any necessary alarm reduction lifestyle changes. Learning and practicing relaxation techniques like deep breathing and meditation, and help your nervous system to become less reactive and thus you will have an increased resistance to stress and anxiety. In addition, it is important to learn how to calm down, because it can make a big difference in your struggle to push a panic away. This is an effective method, which typically includes one or more of the physical senses, sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste. If these self-help techniques are not enough, and anxiety and panic persists, you should combine them with therapy or other treatment that are very useful and free of side effects.
With regard to this matter, from the panic program of natural techniques that does not involve medication because it is based on cognitive-behavioral therapy. Moreover, most of these methods can be implemented in just a few minutes, and they provide long term relief and the ability to eliminate anxiety forever. When you're dealing with this kind of problem you need to find a permanent solution to keep panic away, and this program may be just what you need. This program has a proven formula, and it tells you how to break the cycle of panic, to restore your confidence and gain control over their lives.
Panic away program differs from other treatments because it gives you full, and not simply an indication of how you manage and deal with panic attacks when they occur. The reliability of this program is evidenced by the fact that it has the largest collection of reviews than any other treatment program, and they can be confirmed so the panic away could be your chance to live a normal life.

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Depression and Malnutrition Disorders

Eating disorders and glumness are interrelated and complex illnesses that aid from a comprehensive approach to treatment. As challenging as it is to remedying depression, it becomes even more so when another complex ailment takes hold at the same time. Studies beget shown that a strong connection exists between downheartedness and eating disorders. And the link is as complicated as the two illnesses: They may blossom at the same time, or one can lead to the other.
Depression and Eating Disorders: Understanding The Link
Like recession, eating disorders are complicated illnesses. In to boot to the eating behavior, there are also underlying subconscious issues. The problem may start because of the attention our society puts on thinness, on being nonsuch- or movie star-beautiful. Too regularly women judge themselves by how end they come to that chimerical. Teens or young women in selective start dieting severely, in the count of reaching what they deliberate on is the perfect body. Because they again have a poor self-effigy and feel they can never be too scant, the dieting pattern goes to extremes.
"There is no one origin of an eating disorder; rather, it is characterized by a preoccupation with eats and a distortion of body image," says Basheer Lotfi-Fard, MD, a issue and adolescent psychiatry fellow at the McGaw Medical Center of Northwestern University and Children's Plaque Hospital, in Chicago. The way patients see themselves is distorted, and they can get more and more emotionally caught up in their omission to reach the ideal they've set for buy cheap Valium online. Gloominess and anxiety become part of the conceive of. Although depression and eating disorders are two sequestered illnesses, one condition can easily trigger the other. Comprehensive, the National Institute of Mental Health estimates that up to 75 percent of those with an eating jumble also suffer from slump or anxiety.
Recognizing the Signs and Symptoms of Eating Disorders
 The most proletarian eating disorders are anorexia nervosa, or eccentric dieting sometimes to the point of starvation, and bulimia nervosa, bouts of binging followed by laboured vomiting. Some signs of these embrace:
* Bulimia. People with bulimia fork out a lot of time in the bathroom with the water event (to camouflage the sound of vomiting) and may follow dour diets, yet may eat a lot at times, and may frequently use laxatives to "rout out." Bulimics may be at a normal weight for their age and level.
* Anorexia nervosa. On the other side by side, the anorexia nervosa sufferer may be emaciated, weighing significantly less than stable, and may mention missing her period (her body has stopped menstruating, a side power). Often described as high achievers, these patients in fact show signs of low self-esteem and moan about their weight being too ear-splitting when it may be obviously below normal.
 Treating Eating Disorders and Depression: A Comprehensive Approach
 Because of the complex properties of the two illnesses, individualized treatment plans that lecture the unique problems of each diligent have the best results; the eating breach of the peace and the depression, anxiety, or substance misemploy that is sometimes a factor can all be treated simultaneously. A psychotherapy overtures called cognitive-behavioral analysis is often used to change the behaviors associated with each eating uproar. 
For anorexia in particular, paralipsis must be on getting the patient to payment weight as well as change both her eating habits and her meditative about food and her body conception; there might be physical conditions caused by the anorexia that must to be treated as well, such as voice damage. As Dr. Lotfi-Fard notes, "Near the start treatment is imperative, as the annual mortality figure of young women with anorexia is 12 times higher than the vague population."
According to the American Academy of Lassie & Adolescent Psychiatry, a comprehensive medical gang might include a physician, a nutritionist, and a inclination health therapist. Treatments may involve medication, such as antidepressants, to object the depression and any other psychological factors that led to the eating tangle.
Many patients are effectively treated for the disorders, remarkably when the conditions are identified early on. If you are troubled about a loved one with an eating hodgepodge and depression, don't hesitate to seek help. Ask your doctor or pediatrician for a referral to a psychiatrist or buy generic valium

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Could Depression Be Triggered by a Gene?

Depression is one of the most challenging medical conditions to understand and to treat, and its cause has eluded scientists. Now researchers at Yale University believe depression could be triggered by a gene, a finding which could lead to new ways to treat this often debilitating mental health disease.

Depression could be in your genes

Depression is a serious and pervasive disorder that affects approximately 10 percent of Americans age 18 and older in a given year. More Americans suffer from depression than coronary heart disease, cancer, and HIV/AIDS, according to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
Although depression is common, its causes are not known. People with depression appear to have physical changes in their brains, and brain chemicals called neurotransmitters appear to play a role. Traumatic life events, occurring either in childhood or later in life, seem to be triggers for some individuals, while hormonal changes have also been called to task. And then there is a genetic cause, which scientists have long been trying to identify.
Yale researchers conducted genome scans on tissue samples from 21 deceased adults who had been diagnosed with depression and compared the gene expression levels with those of 18 individuals without depression. One gene stood out: MKP-1,which is known to deactivate a pathway critical for the survival and function of neurons (cells that make up the nervous system). The impairment of this gene has also previously been identified as having a role in depression.
In their samples, the researchers found that MKP-1 was increased more than twofold in the brain tissues of depressed individuals when compared with nondepressed subjects. Ronald S. Duman, professor of psychiatry and pharmacology at Yale and the senior author of the study, noted that MKP-1 “could be a primary cause, or at least a major contributing factor, to the signaling abnormalities that lead to depression.”
One of the challenges in treating depression is the fact that about 40 percent of depressed patients do not respond to any of the medications currently available. The researchers believe their finding places the MKP-1 gene as a potential target for new treatments.
Individuals who have severe depression may be especially difficult to treat, and the longer a person is depressed, the harder it may be to control. Thus discovery of a gene that may trigger depression could be very good news for the millions of Americans who have tried various medications and become discouraged by a lack of success.

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Combined antidepressants and psychotherapy most effective for childhood anxiety

Treatment that combines cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) with an antidepressant medication is most likely to help children with anxiety disorders, but each of the treatments alone is also effective, according to a new study funded by the National Institutes of Health's National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH).
"Anxiety disorders are among the most common mental disorders affecting children and adolescents. Untreated anxiety can undermine a child's success in school, jeopardize his or her relationships with family, and inhibit social functioning," said NIMH Director Thomas R. Insel, MD "This study provides strong evidence and reassurance to parents that a well-designed, two-pronged treatment approach is the gold standard, while a single line of treatment is still effective."
The Child/Adolescent Anxiety Multimodal Study (CAMS) randomly assigned 488 children ages 7 years to 17 years to one of four treatment options for a 12-week period:
* Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), a specific type of therapy that, for this study, taught children about anxiety and helped them face and master their fears by guiding them through structured tasks;
* A Selective Serotonin Re-Uptake Inhibitor (SSRI) class antidepressant (sertraline [Zoloft®]);
* CBT combined with sertraline;
* pill placebo (sugar pill).
The children, recruited from six regionally dispersed sites throughout the United States, all had moderate to severe separation anxiety disorder, generalized anxiety disorder or social phobia. Many also had coexisting disorders, including other anxiety disorders, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and behavior problems.
The six CAMS sites were Duke University; New York State Psychiatric Institute/Columbia University Medical Center; Johns Hopkins University; Temple University/University of Pennsylvania; University of California, Los Angeles; and the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic/University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
John Walkup, MD, of Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, and colleagues found that among those in combination treatment, 81 percent improved. Sixty percent in the CBT-only group, and 55 percent in the sertraline-only group improved. Among those on placebo, 24 percent improved. A second phase of the study will monitor the children for an additional six months.
"CAMS clearly showed that combination treatment is the most effective for these children. But sertraline alone or CBT alone showed a good response rate as well. This suggests that clinicians and families have three good options to consider for young people with anxiety disorders, depending on treatment availability and costs," said Walkup.
Results also demonstrated that the treatments were safe. Children taking sertraline alone showed no more side effects than the children taking the placebo and few children discontinued the trial due to side effects. In addition, no child attempted suicide, a rare side effect sometimes associated with antidepressant medications in children.
CAMS findings echo previous studies in which sertraline and other SSRIs were found to be effective in treating childhood anxiety disorder. The study's results also add more evidence that high-quality CBT, with or without medication, can effectively treat anxiety disorders in children, according to the researchers.
"Further analyses of the CAMS data may help us predict who is most likely to respond to which treatment, and develop more personalized treatment approaches for children with anxiety disorders," concluded Philip C. Kendall, PhD, of Temple University, a senior investigator of the study. "But in the meantime, we can be assured that we already have good treatments at our disposal."

Friday, December 10, 2010

Depression Medications Not Linked To Birth Defects

Pregnant mothers can safely use prescribed antidepressant medications during their first trimester, according to a new study from the Universit de Montr al and Ste. Justine Hospital published in the May edition of the British Journal of Psychiatry.
Dr. Anick B rard and her team found that antidepressants have no effect on foetal development. “This is the first study to investigate the impact of antidepressant use during the first trimester of pregnancy in mothers with psychiatric disorders,” she said. “In terms of birth malformations in this population, we found no difference between women who used antidepressants and those who did not use antidepressants during their first trimester.”
The research team used data from the Quebec Pregnancy Registry, established by their group, to analyze the records of 2,329 new mothers diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder and treated with antidepressants for at least 30 days before pregnancy. Also included in the registry were women who delivered liveborn and stillborn children, while birth defects were considered anything from facial malformations to heart anomalies.
“The duration of antidepressant use in the first trimester of pregnancy was not associated with an increased risk of birth malformations,” explained Dr. B rard. “We hope these findings help clinicians and women decide whether to continue antidepressant therapy during pregnancy.”
eMaxHealth Editor’s note: It should be studied to see if there is a relationship betwee the use of medications for the treatment of depression during pregnancy and preterm birth, as another study links preterm birth to birth defects and long term survival.

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Antidepressants Increase Suicidal Thoughts in People Under 25

People under the age of 25 who take antidepressants have a higher risk of suicide, but adults older than that do not run the same risk according to a new Food & Drug Administration (FDA) analysis. In October 2004, the U.S. FDA directed the manufacturers of all antidepressant medications to add a "black box" warning that describes the increased risk of suicidal thoughts and behavior in children and adolescents. This "black box" warning is the strongest prescription drug labeling that the government can order.
For decades, some physicians have suspected that young people may have increased thoughts of suicide when they first began taking antidepressants however; many psychiatrists have criticized the warnings, saying they scare people away from effective treatment for depression, which is the leading cause of suicide.
The FDA analysis by Dr Marc Stone, Dr Thomas Laughren and colleagues, involved a review of data from eight different drug makers on 372 clinical trials involving nearly 100,000 adults. Basically they found the risk of suicide was "strongly age-dependent," with higher risks in people under 25 and lower risks in people 65 and older. They also support the concept that antidepressant drugs can have two distinct effects. That is, in some patients, they can promote suicidal thoughts and this risk seems to lessen with age. In others, the drugs provide relief from depression, reducing the risk of suicide. Researchers suggest more research is needed to understand these differences.
The FDA is trying to take steps to make people under 25 who take antidepressant safe. In addition to the black box warning, the FDA has also announced that it is in the process of developing a user-friendly patient medication guide which will be given to people taking these drugs. In addition, because antidepressants increase suicidal thoughts in people under 25, parents will be advised to look for warning signs in children, including worsening depression, agitation, irritability, and unusual changes in behavior.
Scientist who stand behind the FDA study suggest that it doesn't mean that these drugs shouldn't be given to young adults, rather, people need to think about the risks and the benefits. The findings of this study suggest that antidepressants increase suicidal thoughts in people under 25 so to watch people carefully. If someone on antidepressants talks of being suicidal, it may actually be due to the drugs and the prescribing physician may have to change the dosage or discontinue the medication.
If you know of someone who is suicidal please contact your local mental health agency.

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

New York Campaign Addresses High Rates Of Depression In Latinas

The Health Department launched a new awareness campaign to help de-stigmatize mental health problems and promote positive coping strategies among young Latinas, who suffer from depression at higher rates than other groups. This fall the Health Department began distributing posters, palm cards and compact mirrors with the tag line,
“Don’t keep it in – talk to us” in both English and Spanish. In addition to public middle schools and high schools, the campaign will enlist shelters, health clinics, beauty salons, community-based organizations and the Health Department’s District Public Health Offices.
Latina teens who are struggling with mental health issues are urged to call 311 and ask for LIFENET or AY DESE, a service of the Mental Health Association of New York City, for free confidential multilingual help and referrals.
“Depression is a treatable illness,” said Dr. David Rosin, Executive Deputy Commissioner at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. “Too many young Latinas have unaddressed mental health issues and are hurting themselves. We hope this campaign will reach these young women and encourage them to call for help if they are feeling sad or overwhelmed.”
A 2005 survey of New York City public high school students suggests that Latina teens suffer disproportionately from depression. Some 46% (versus 31% of white and Asian girls) reported feeling sad for at least two of the past four weeks. While the number of actual suicides among teen girls are very low, 14% of Latinas had attempted suicide during the past year versus 8% of white girls.
When interviewed in small groups, many Latina teens report high levels of stress at work, home and school. Those who are recent immigrants with limited English may be overwhelmed with taking care of siblings at home or helping parents navigate life in New York City, even as they struggle to adjust and fit in themselves. Although some Latina teens report talking with friends and family about their problems, that is not always enough.
“Getting professional help, outside an immediate circle of family and friends, can help with the problems teen girls are facing,” said Dr. Rosa Gil, founder of the Hispanic Mental Health Association and founder and President of Comunilife, Inc., which provides community-based mental health, rehabilitation services and housing to patients of diverse populations. “Doctors and therapists who work with young Latinas or recent immigrants in similar situations can help young women realize they are not alone and help them feel better.”

Friday, November 26, 2010

There is a Big Gap in the Understanding Depression

There are many Americans that claim they do not know much about depression; however, most are very aware of the risks of not receiving care for depression according to a survey released by the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI).
The survey provided a "three dimensional" measurement of responses from members of the general public who do not know anyone with depression, such as caregivers of adults diagnosed with depression, and adults living with the illness.
One major finding that the study found was almost 50 percent of caregivers who responded had been diagnosed with depression themselves, however; only about 25 percent said they were getting help.
Additionally the survey discovered that almost 60 percent of people living with depression said that they use their primary care physicians for direct care rather than a mental health professional.
"The survey reveals gaps and guideposts on roads to recovery," said the Executive Director of NAMI Michael J. Fitzpatrick. "It tells what has been found helpful in treating depression. It can help caregivers better anticipate stress that will confront them. It reflects issues that need to be part of ongoing health care reform."
"There are many treatment strategies," said Medical Director of NAMI Ken Duckworth. "What often works is a combination of treatments that fit a person and their lifestyle.” He continues, "research indicates that the combination of medication and psychotherapy are most effective. But physical exercise, prayer, music therapy, yoga, animal therapy and other practices all can play a role.”
Duckworth states that “The good news is that 80 percent or more of the public recognize that depression is a medical illness, affecting people of all ages, races and socioeconomic groups, which can be treated”
This study may light the way for Americans and providers to pay better attention to the gap that exists with depression and the understanding and treatment of it. NAMI, a grassroots mental health organization who is dedicated to improving the lives of individuals and families that have been affected by mental illness will continue to help bridge that gap.