In a pilot trial being done by the University of South Florida, children are being tested to see if a strong antibiotic is an effective mental health treatment for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). Yes that is correct, tested. This raises red flag questions like why are antibiotics being given as a mental health treatment and why are children being tested with drugs for a condition that has no proven medical or scientific foundation?
An antibiotic by definition means against bacteria. When you go to a medical doctor and you are diagnosed with an infection, antibiotics are prescribed to kill or inhibit the bacteria causing the infection. If children diagnosed with OCD are being given an antibiotic as a mental health treatment, then it would follow to pose the question, does psychiatry now think that OCD is caused by an infection?
In any case, this is just another failure on the part of the psychiatric community to try and look medically legitimate when they have no scientific proof or evidence that OCD or any other mental disorder even exists. The fact that they are trying to use an antibiotic as a mental health treatment just shows that they really don’t know what causes so-called mental disorders and consequently they continue to randomly flounder around looking for methods to keep them in business.
The antibiotic being used as mental health treatment in this pilot trial is called D-cycloserine (DCS). Perhaps it wouldn’t be too worrisome if DCS was a general antibiotic that parents might use to treat common infections in their own children, but it is not. Instead, this antibiotic is typically prescribed to treat tuberculosis. Upon learning this fact it would be expected that parents would at least minimally react by raising an eyebrow or two. One would assume that this antibiotic must be pretty strong to be used to treat something as serious as tuberculosis, but even more of a concern is that it is called a last resort drug because it is prescribed when other antibiotics prescribed to treat tuberculosis have failed.
Additonally, this drug can only be used for a short time as it has serious neurological side effects. Considering a child’s brain is continually developing into adulthood, this presents a risky proposition. Psychiatric drugs in general do not produce results that could be called an overnight success. On the contrary, they can be taken for years to “manage” a so-called disorder. So how is an antibiotic limited by short term use going to “manage” OCD without introducing those serious neurological side effects?
In this pilot study, it is claimed that DCS appears to improve the brain’s ability to get rid of fears that contribute to OCD. The simplicity of this statement implies that they are not sure what this drug does. In fact, psychiatric drugs are only an attempt to treat symptoms because they don’t know the cause of the condition. The theory that you need to take a drug to fix a problem with your brain is enmeshed in society today as mental health treatment, but is unsubstantiated by any medical or scientific test. In other words, it’s a crapshoot to declare that a strong drug appears to alleviate OCD in children.
What is for sure is a lengthy list of side effects resulting from this antibiotic. As with other psychiatric drugs, D-cycloserine has several severe side effects in common. One could experience suicidal thoughts, tremors or twitching, seizures, aggression, mood swings, bizarre behavior, paralysis or allergic reactions where one has difficulty breathing or tightness of the chest. These kinds of side effects are not an option when children are the patients.
All in all nothing supports taking drugs for mental health treatment. The field of psychiatry will continue to gamble with our children because they have no scientific data to back up what they preach. It would be smart to get a full medical examination of your child and research all your alternatives so you can make an informed decision about your child’s welfare and mental health.
http://www.tampabay.com/news/
http://www.drugs.com/sfx/
http://www.umdnj.edu/umcweb/
I am sick to death of reading Blogs with low quality content and I am so glad that I found your article today. It has certainly cleared a lot of things up for me