The short answer is nothing, if you don’t want to have close relationships. There are people who really are content to live as an island. But most people aren’t built this way. The usual scenario I see is the person who spends their young adulthood (20’s and 30’s) charging forward with their career, with limited […]
What is Panic Disorder?
Panic attacks can be extremely disabling, so much so that often individuals who have had a panic attack have already made a trip to their local emergency department. What is a panic attack? There are many physical symptoms associated with it, but in general it is a discrete period of intense fear accompanied by physical […]
Chronic Terminal Illness, When Do You Say Goodbye?
Dealing with a chronic illness is difficult on many levels. But how do you handle someone having a terminal illness that lingers on? Let’s look at Judy Judy’s mom has a medical illness that was diagnosed when Judy was a teenager. Her mom was in and out of the hospital for years then seemed to […]
Provigil May Help With Bipolar Depression
There seems to be a lot of buzz about Provigil lately. I’ve mentioned in a previous post that Provigil is used to treat wakefulness disorders such as narcolepsy, sleep apnea and shift-work disorder. Psychiatrists and others have used Provigil off label (non-FDA approved reasons) for other indications such as an adjunct to antidepressants, to counteract […]
What is Heavy Drinking?
Update June 28, 2010 Here is a video I posted to get a visual. For more videos like this, subscribe to my Youtube Channel by clicking here. Clinically, health care providers consider heavy drinking to be more than 2 drinks a day totaling 14 or more drinks per week. But what is a drink? In […]
For Elderly, Pain May Be Depression
Several recent studies show that in some elderly patients who met criteria for depression, a large percentage of them visited their doctors with only pain complaints. There seems to be a direct relationship between the number of pain complaints and the likelihood of having depression. That is, the more pain symptoms the more likely the […]