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HealthyPlace.com Newsletter

This Week - June 15, 2003

1. Battle to shut down pro-anorexia websites
2. Florida kids insurance program won't pay for Strattera
3. What to do about overwhelming anxiety
4. Doctors link social drive, smell in Schizophrenia
5. How to quit smoking
6. Lilly award program seeking those who are successfully battling mental illness
7. Domestic Violence, Pathological Liar: Should I Take Him Back?
8. Thought for today

Pro-Ana Sites Are Dangerous

Battle mounts to shut down pro-anorexia websites

A number of websites currently on the internet are known as "Pro-Ana." They are a place where girls and women with eating disorders gather to find support for their lifestyle. The sites tout anorexia as a lifestyle worth continuing.

While many of them start off with warnings toward new visitors that they should leave if they do not currently have an eating disorder, they are also filled with "tips" on continuing to live with an eating disorder and how to hide it from friends and family.

In 2001, the media uncovered hundreds of pro-anorexia websites. Since then, a battle has been mounting. Here's a look at the people who are fighting these sites -- those who want to contain them and those who try to shut them down. Story

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State Says No To 'miracle' Drug Strattera

At 4 years old, Logan Blevins was so disruptive that his mother took him out of preschool. He hit other children, ran into traffic and screamed at the top of his lungs.

Logan has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. His mother tried some of the stimulant drugs, but they didn't work.

Then doctors placed him on Strattera, a new non-stimulant medication for ADHD in children and adults. What happened next was a "miracle" says his mother.

But now the state of Florida's insurance program for kids won't pay for Strattera and Tammy Blevins can't understand why the program only wants kids on stimulants. Continue reading here.

view video: Psychiatric drugs can help kids with ADHD

To find out more about Strattera, click here.

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When Worry Takes Control

Anxiety is part of the package of life. It’s a natural byproduct of having a brain that is capable of such high-wire acts as considering the future. A little anxiety is good, even necessary, a great motivator to get us to plan well and to perform ably.

Yet too much anxiety can be disabling. For millions of people, worry disrupts everyday life, restricting it to some degree or even overshadowing it entirely. An estimated 15% of Americans suffer from one or another of the anxiety disorders. These include generalized anxiety, specific phobias, obsessive-compulsive disorder and flat-out panic attacks. As a group, anxiety disorders constitute the most common disorder in the country.

How do you know whether you are worrying too much? When anxiety moves beyond an occasional wave of apprehension to become a constant and dominating force in your life, you need to take steps to curb anxiety.

Treatment is tailored to the specific concerns that preoccupy each person. Nevertheless, there are some treatment techniques that are widely applied. Persons who are expert at treating anxiety often use a combination of approaches:

• Cognitive Therapy: Focuses on creating an understanding of the thought patterns that bring on worry. It helps anxiety suffers separating unrealistic from realistic thoughts.
• Behavior Therapy: Focuses on tamping down anxiety through control of specific ways the body overreacts to worry. One common approach is to teach controlled breathing and the relaxing of muscles that constrict with worry. Both techniques lower heart rate and blood pressure.
• Relaxation Training: Through a mixture of cognitive and behavior techniques, helps avert high anxiety. One approach is to think of a relaxing scene when anxiety levels start to rise.
• Desensitization: Those who suffer phobias and obsessive-compulsive disorder are gradually and safely exposed to whatever is the source of their anxiety, until, over time, tolerance is built.
• Medication: Antidepressant and antianxiety medications are most effective in combination with psychotherapy

Want to know more about how to recover from various anxiety disorders, visit the Anxieties Site and read interviews with some of the foremost experts on anxiety here.

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Doctors Link Social Drive, Smell in Schizophrenia

People with schizophrenia often have an impaired sense of smell and a new study suggests that patients with this symptom are also much more likely to have problems with social relationships.

Although people have often heard of other schizophrenia symptoms, such as hallucinations, the lack of social drive is a serious problem that may not get better with treatment.

Details here

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Are You Successfully Battling A Mental Illness?

Lilly award program seeking candidates

Eli Lilly and Company announces a new name and new direction for its prestigious Reintegration Awards program. In addition to recognizing outstanding achievements made by a mental health treatment team, the newly designed Helping Move Lives Forward Reintegration Awards will now honor individuals who are succeeding in their personal battles with mental illness.

"The Helping Move Lives Forward Reintegration Awards has expanded its scope to honor individuals who have made extraordinary progress toward the ultimate goal of reintegration by taking an active part in the management of their mental health with proper medication and the full support of their treatment team," said Gino Santini, President of U.S. Operations, Eli Lilly and Company.

Anyone can nominate individuals, caregivers, treatment groups, treatment programs and consumer advocates for one of 10 Lilly Helping Move Lives Forward Reintegration Awards.

Winners in each of the 10 categories will receive grants to their respective institutions to further the success of their programs. First place winners will receive $5,000 and second place winners will receive $2,500. For those recognized in the three honorary categories, a contribution of $5,000 will be made to the mental health facility or advocacy program of his/her choice.

Go here to obtain an application form and to learn more about the awards.

Butt Out: Quit Smoking

Advice for those who are trying to quit. As cigarette prices soar and the media downplays smoking's sex appeal, will Americans break free from nicotine once and for all? Addiction expert Timothy Baker says the key is persistence.

Each year, 34 percent of America's 50 million smokers try to kick the habit. But only about 5 percent of those attempts are successful, according to the American Lung Association. Luckily, Timothy Baker, Ph.D., a psychology professor at the University of Wisconsin and consultant to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is discovering new means of breaking our nation's tobacco dependence. Here, Baker explains why the human psyche may never allow us to become completely smoke-free.

What are the most effective ways to quit smoking?

Timothy Baker: There is a strong dose-response relationship between the amount of psychological treatment and rate of success in quitting. The best possible outcome requires both medication--nicotine patches, Zyban and so forth--as well as psychosocial intervention. Each doubles a person's chance of quitting successfully.

Do smokers need therapy?

What we know is that about 70 percent of smokers want to quit, but smokers also have a much higher rate of depression and anxiety than those who don't smoke. There is also growing evidence that the longer you smoke, the more likely you are to develop some of these negative emotional states.

Why might a person quit, then start again?

The most characteristic way people relapse is that they encounter an upsetting stressor--an argument, anger or anxiety. Negative mood inflates the incentive value of drug use: Expectations that smoking will soothe that negative mood increase.

Is that because of the contrast between feeling lousy from withdrawal and feeling good from the cigarette?

Smokers are in withdrawal virtually all the time. As soon as the body's nicotine level starts to drop, they start to go through withdrawal. So smokers are always getting some reward from smoking.

Does that mean they're used to the link between smoking a cigarette and feeling better?

Addiction is a vicious cycle. The best predictor of success is how much negative mood a person experiences in the first few days of quitting. Another interesting part of this equation is that many smokers don't experience a decline in withdrawal symptoms after they quit, but rather, their withdrawal symptoms can be higher one or two months later.

So many people just continue to feel rotten?

Right. And when people have long-term withdrawal syndromes, they are much more likely to fail.

But with psychotherapy and medication you can perhaps get through it?

On your own, the success rate is around 5 percent. But with intensive treatment, it can be five times higher. When you quit smoking, in some sense it's like mourning. Nicotine stimulates some of the same brain regions stimulated by interaction with a loved one. So when smokers say, "I feel like I lost my best friend," neurologically, they have.

What advice would you offer?

Don't be too optimistic about what quitting is going to be like; that will make you better prepared. As opposed to mourning a loved one who is gone forever, here the loved one is available at the nearest convenience store. Once a person has a single puff, the odds are 80 to 85 percent they will go back to full-time smoking.

So should they keep trying?

Smokers are most likely to quit in their third, fourth or fifth attempt. Nothing predicts success like failure.

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Bulletin Board:
Domestic Violence, Pathological Liar:
Should I Take Him Back?

Saffron1970:

"My husband was arrested for spousal abuse last January. There was no 'battery' in the traditional sense, but I did get held down and thrown across the room." Because of that, we separated.

"Since then, he's been in anger management therapy, going back to church again and insists that he's been sober and clean and honest ever since."

"Yesterday we discussed the possibility of reconciliation- hoping to have him back in the home by Thanksgiving. He went home, and I later stopped by to tell him how happy I was that we're finally getting 'back on track'. When I got there he was quite obviously NOT clean and sober."

I am a single mother of our toddler aged twins as well as two older children from my first marriage. I really want to belive that he's capable of being the person he says he wants to be- the one he seemed to be up until yesterday. What do you think? Help!

Can you help Saffron1970? Respond here .

For information on codependence, visit the Joy2MeU and Serendipity websites. And to find out where great relationships start, visit Celebrate Love.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Here's something to think about...

"Hell, there are no rules here--we're trying to accomplish something."
- Thomas Edison

From all of us here at HealthyPlace.com, we hope you have a good week.

Previous Newsletters

• June 8, 2003
• June 2, 2003
• May 26, 2003
• May 20, 2003
• May 12, 2003
• April 28, 2003
• April 14, 2003
• March 31, 2003
• March 24, 2003
• March 12, 2000

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