Monday, February 20, 2012

Things I'm Thinking About This Holiday Weekend

Happy Presidents' Day.  I probably have 50 blog posts floating around in my head, but I thought I'd share with you some of the stuff I've been reading on line lately.  


The New York Times Op Ed editor doesn't seem to like stimulants these days.   A few weeks back there was an article talking about a study showing that long-term stimulants aren't helpful, and today there is a piece by a writer who finds distraction helpful...told with some contempt towards his friend's son whom he calls Ritalin Boy.  Steve over on Thought Broadcast has his own take on ADD meds.   
 What do you think: are stimulants helpful or not?  I'll stand aside for this one. 


Then there was the article about the business/computer whiz who put hundreds of thousands of dollars of his own money (and all his time) into a kidney transplant matchmaking service.  If you need an uplifting story, this is an interesting one. 


Over on KevinMD,  Dr. George Lundberg is a bit skeptical of SAMHSA's new defining features for the Recovery Movement.  I more or less agree, it feels like it's more about semantics (what does it mean to say recovery is "person-driven"? as opposed to?) than substance, and a lot of it seems to boil down to the idea that patients should be treated with respect and people with mental illnesses should work towards achieving their full potential.  Those things I agree with, for everyone. 


And finally, for the writers among us, Pete Earley has a Before You Quit Your Day Job post up on his blog.  I'm still pondering the $80,000 advance.  The Shrink Rappers need an agent, oh, but we do love our friends over at Johns Hopkins University Press.  


And finally, for my friend ClinkShrink the Introvert,  who wrote a review of a Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't stop Talking (---huh, stop looking at me), here is an article called The Brainstorming Myth by Jonah Lehrer in The New Yorker


Okay, lots of links.  This is what I've been thinking about.  Aside from that, I made a quick trip to NYC and had my photo taken with Cookie Monster in Times Square, and I loved Jersey Boys.

8 comments:

Sarebear said...

Now I'm thinking we need to SEE the pic of you with Cookie Monster! Unless there's other people involved that you'd need permission to post or know they'd not want to be posted.

I was thinking today about "If we ever had money . . ." and thinking I'd go visit Washington D.C. and New York City. I've been both places before, as a child, since I lived along the Hudson River, but I'd like to go back (well not to where I grew up too many bad memories).

Dinah said...

Sarebear,
Always happy to have your comments (even late!) but I don't think me & Cookie add to my professional identity.
You never know, though.
Dinah

Sunny CA said...

I have seen stimulants improve students' concentration and success in the classroom, from my perspective as a teacher. This seems useful to me and important long-term, since knowledge builds on what you already know.

I have no idea how the meds affect creativity or perform years down the road. I could see that an adult might prefer to have access to a distracted mind for creative work, but many times, lack of focus is a huge problem, even for adults.

Nurse and Hospital Stories said...

Love the article about introverts. I as a testimony is an introvert too, and this is quite helpful for me to not be envious of extroverts who can express themselves so clearly as well as have the great courage to take risks. Great links. :)

Cheers,
Peny@Top 5 Healthcare Settings in US with High Demand for Nurses

Spritz said...

I was divided on the stimulant thing. I thought ADD/ADHD was a joke and an excuse for parents to not deal with their children. A SPECT image and seeing the results of medication changed my mind. I watched Metadate completely squash the symtoms of ADHD, insomnia, and OCD in a wild child who beat his head into walls. I thought it would turn him into a zombie, but the total opposite happened. That was one of the most amazing transformations that I ever saw. I can't answer for long term yet.

I am not sure what I think about being called odd, creepy, and potentially dangerous. That is a little out there. Did you ever think that introverts are just really annoyed by extroverts?

EastCoaster said...

I work for an agency serving clients of our state's department of mental health.

I think that there are two things that a lot of the advocates believe, some people may come to be symptom-free medication--even people with schizophrenia.
They are responding to a still-pervasive belief that the chronic course makes it impossible for people to lead meaningful lives--should just be locked up in hospitals etc. whereas people with psychotic illnesses can be very clean-cut and hold down jobs.

Anon Anon said...

This entry reminds me of my online friend. He's an engineering graduate student suffering from ADHD and depression. It was seriously affecting his school, work and social life. The usual stimulants and antidepressants weren't helping. Then he tried methamphetamine. It is sold legally for ADHD but was too expensive for him, so he learned to make his own and even invented a better, safer, more environmentally friendly way to make it. He took very small doses--less than a tenth of what people take to get high. He was truly using it medicinally and his life improved by several orders of magnitude. It cured both his depression and ADHD in ways nothing else could. He had become a huge success in all areas of life. Then he got arrested and now his life is ruined and he's suicidal. So now he's buying "Research Chemicals" online to find a legal replacement that won't cause him to test positive for meth use on drug tests. He's trying methiopropamine, a derivative of meth and also methoxyketamine, a derivative of Ketamine, in tiny doses because of its reported antidepressant effects. So far he is reporting increased energy and motivation. Although his life is still a mess, he's feeling more able to cope with it and has returned to working in a research lab. Makes me wonder if I should give these a try if the MST clinical trial doesn't work for me. Or maybe I'll go for the Ketamine clinical trial and if there's no effect with that try the methiopropamine. These drugs are perfectly legal (because nobody has gotten around to banning them yet).

SteveBMD said...

Looks like its time to turn on comment moderation again.