Expert: Jurriaan Plesman, Nutritional Psychotherapist - 6/10/2004

Question
Good Morning,
My name is Susan and I have a question about my husband Robert situation. Since he was yough, his personality was always described as beaming. He is very hyperactive physically, feet are always moving, hands tapping on the table, body rocking back and forth. He is very verbally aggressive. He will say that there is no inbetween for him, he is very up or very down. He is definately depressed alot. He is a prefectionist at work, infact, he is always noticed for doing things correctly when everybody else gets things done incorrectly. He is easily angered, but mostly at himself. So far he has been to many doctors to try to correct this problem. First he was put on concerta for adult adhd. He did well as far as the tone in his voice calming down and all of the excessive movement completely stopping. But when put in aggitating positions like being at work, it made him feel worse. He stopped taking the concerta. As an inbetween medication, they gave him ativan. It basicly helps him cope. He also has a seizure disorder from a head injury, which he takes 200mg of lamicatal a day for...since being on that, he has not has a seizure in almost a year. They did try him on tegrital, which made him immediately feel angry and nagative. Then they tried topomax, which made him lose 22 pounds in 5 weeks, he is 5'7" and 163 to start...he was sickly looking. It made it so he could not even force himself to stay awake. Then after that they gave him the lamictal. Anyways, he went to a neurologist who tried him on cylert, it made him hyper and feel that everything around him was bad. He finally went to a psychiatrist. He felt it seemed more like GAD, and asked him to try gabitril. He had a reaction that nobody had ever heard of. It made him physically hyper. His muscles were tense, his jaw hurt, he was running around the house, almost being silly, doing headstands on the bed, saying he needed to wrestle somebody. He walked the garbage out, which is 8 buildings away from us. The positive part of it was that he became much more positive in attitude, he was not getting angry at anything, not verbally aggressive, more rational in his reasoning. But he said it felt terrible being so strung out, he could not sleep. So he went back to the psychiatrist and was told that it may be bipolor, due to his actions and the fact that his mind is always going 100 mph. Because of his seizure disorder and his reaction to the gabitril, he told him to keep using the ativan for now. He said maybe we will try trileptal. That is just like tegrital, which he had a very bad reaction to. I don't know which way to turn, he is about to give up on doctors. He used to drink heavily to as he said "come down". He quit for a year, and is drinking much less, and at home in the evenings. Anything you could tell me about this situation or advice you could give would be greatly appreciated!

Susan

Answer
Your husband must be going through a terrible stage. After having been on so many drugs without any success one wonder what else we can do.

Now I cannot say from what you have written whether he is bipolar or just hyperactive. This is something doctors need to diagnose.

I am a nutritional psychologist and try to help people in  conjunction with their doctors with a combination of nutritional therapy AND psychotherapy.

Most people with any form of mental illness can be helped by getting them on a hypoglycemic diet.

Most of our mental instability can be caused by a diet that is too high in refined carbohydrates - such as sugar - and low in good quality proteins.

When the body is bombarded with sugars, receptors for insulin break down and we get ‘insulin resistance” (hypoglycemia). This means that the brain is not getting a stable supply of glucose, on which it depends for energy. With unstable blood sugar levels, the body produces excess stress hormones - such as adrenaline and cortisol - in an attempt to stabilize blood sugar levels to the brain. This may be responsible for the hyperactivity you husband is suffering from. Stress hormones may cause the symptoms of mental illness, including much of bipolarity - the ups and downs of bipolar symptoms.

With the hypoglycemic diet - which is similar to the diabetic diet - taken in frequent small snacks and accompanied with some nutritional supplements (zinc, vitamin C, B-Complex and Chromium picolinate, fish oil), the wild fluctuations in blood sugar levels normalize without reliance on stress hormones to regulate blood sugar levels.

Thus in any treatment it is necessary to combine it with the hypoglycemic diet.

There are psychological factors that may contribute to the frustration and anger outburst. This is usually related to a low self-esteem or negative self-image. This can be overcome by doing a course in PSYCHOTHERAPY. We have a self-help PSYCHOTHERAPY course at our web site (free of charge) that I suggest you both read and study. It gives you an understanding of some of the ‘psychological' problems we have when we have a vulnerable self-image.

The course looks at how we arrive at a self-image, how we can improve our self-image by mental exercises in the here and now, how we can defend ourselves against criticism without getting upset or upsetting other people. There is also a Values Clarification course that looks at what motivates us, and the values we pursue.

Please read:

“What is Hypoglycemia?”

“The Hypoglycemic Diet”

“The Serotonin Connection”

“Nutritional Aspects of Depression”

and the self-help PSYCHOTHERAPY course.

So you see there is a lot to learn, but in the end we will be much happier about ourselves and life.

Please discuss with your doctor or counsellor.

Jurriaan Plesman
Free web site
http://www.hypoglycemia.asn.au