Justinian
31-08-16, 20:12
This questions isn't as outlandish as it may at first appear.
Within the last 2-3 weeks I have been on a course of antibiotics for a malady unconnected with my mental health.
And importantly, I can't remember ever having received an antibiotic before, so if I have it was in early childhood and therefore certainly predates symptoms and onset of my mental illness(es), roughly depression and anxiety.
In fact, I took the first antibiotic for the entire 2-week course and then yesterday the doctor prescribed a second antibiotic which is "hard to come by" (said pharmacists) presumably because of its scary and quite likely side-effects.
I ordered it yesterday (no pharmacy had it in stock and one "hadn't seen it in years") and picked it up this morning.
But my epiphany -- I'm calling it that -- came late last night when I was researching this antibiotic online, and is hinted at above, and I'll quote it because it's the most extraordinary thing that's happened to me in years of being a mental patient:
"presumably because of its scary and quite likely side-effects"
I have had daily suicidal (and self-harm) thoughts, daydreams and fantasies for a decade and last night I was concerned about the side-effects of a medicine the doctor had prescribed earlier that day. I've had too many psychiatric medications to list or even remember, a lengthy hospitalisation, multiple A&E visits, a course of electro-convulsive ("shock") therapy... and I didn't care about the side-effects because I didn't care about preserving my health.
I know correlation doesn't mean causation and that this is a subjective experience in an informal non-placebo-controlled non-blind study of one person who is both researcher and subject (that's me), but I'm fascinated by this.
Is it permanent or temporary? I don't know. The big moment was last night, but the week leading up to that also contained unusually positive experiences.
So about two hours ago I googled something like "antibiotics mental illness" and there are some prestigious organisations which not only mention this possibility but which have looked at this quite seriously.
I came across the NIH's (they have discarded the 'M' probably for marketing/publicity reasons perhaps?) website's page about this.
Anyone thinking along similar lines?
Any thoughts?
Within the last 2-3 weeks I have been on a course of antibiotics for a malady unconnected with my mental health.
And importantly, I can't remember ever having received an antibiotic before, so if I have it was in early childhood and therefore certainly predates symptoms and onset of my mental illness(es), roughly depression and anxiety.
In fact, I took the first antibiotic for the entire 2-week course and then yesterday the doctor prescribed a second antibiotic which is "hard to come by" (said pharmacists) presumably because of its scary and quite likely side-effects.
I ordered it yesterday (no pharmacy had it in stock and one "hadn't seen it in years") and picked it up this morning.
But my epiphany -- I'm calling it that -- came late last night when I was researching this antibiotic online, and is hinted at above, and I'll quote it because it's the most extraordinary thing that's happened to me in years of being a mental patient:
"presumably because of its scary and quite likely side-effects"
I have had daily suicidal (and self-harm) thoughts, daydreams and fantasies for a decade and last night I was concerned about the side-effects of a medicine the doctor had prescribed earlier that day. I've had too many psychiatric medications to list or even remember, a lengthy hospitalisation, multiple A&E visits, a course of electro-convulsive ("shock") therapy... and I didn't care about the side-effects because I didn't care about preserving my health.
I know correlation doesn't mean causation and that this is a subjective experience in an informal non-placebo-controlled non-blind study of one person who is both researcher and subject (that's me), but I'm fascinated by this.
Is it permanent or temporary? I don't know. The big moment was last night, but the week leading up to that also contained unusually positive experiences.
So about two hours ago I googled something like "antibiotics mental illness" and there are some prestigious organisations which not only mention this possibility but which have looked at this quite seriously.
I came across the NIH's (they have discarded the 'M' probably for marketing/publicity reasons perhaps?) website's page about this.
Anyone thinking along similar lines?
Any thoughts?