Marijuana – What Does It Treat? “It does everything,” my colleague explained, shaking his head. “It treats pain. It treats headaches. It treats depression and anxiety. Epilepsy. They keep asking me for it, every day.” A novel antidepressant? An extraordinary new anti-anxiety agent? No, marijuana. My internist friend is bombarded with requests to […]
Treating Depression Effectively – Getting People To Sleep (11/25/13)
Treatment of Depression Is Often Ineffective The key to successful treatment of depression may be treating the insomnia that accompanies it. What New Research is Changing Attitudes? Rachel Manber at Stanford studied cognitive behavioral treatments for insomniac, depressed people. When their insomnia was fixed following CBT, depression treatment success doubled. Get them to sleep and they stopped being depressed. […]
To Sleep – Perchance to Drive (8/26/13)
Safe to Drive? The FDA has recently requested sleeping pill manufacturers conduct more “morning after” driving tests. Getting sleep is important, but remaining sleepy while operating a vehicle is another story. They should have spoken to the police in New Zealand. Recently police in Hamilton received an odd call. A woman called about her friend. […]
Losing Everything (7/15/13)
Standing Out Maybe you knew him. He didn’t stand out in a crowd. A hardworking guy, in his mid-fifties, he long worked a steady job. Proudly he raised a family. Then the bust came. He got downsized. The losses came like dominos. First the job. Unemployment insurance went on for a while, but there was […]
Is ADD a Sleep Disorder? (5/6/13)
The Newest Epidemic ADD is now “epidemic” across America. With 13% of adolescents “diagnosed” in national surveys, people want to know just how big a problem ADD is. A recent article by psychiatrist by Vatsal Thakkar in the NY Times argued much of ADD may be misdiagnosed sleep disorders. Himself once diagnosed as suffering from […]