Author: The Fix

Michelle Williams Talks Depression, Getting Treatment In New Interview

“For months, I was slipping and slipping and slipping [and] before you knew it I was at the bottom of the pit looking up.”

This past spring, Michelle Williams reunited with Beyoncé and Kelly Rowland for a Destiny’s Child reunion at Coachella. Not long after, Williams checked into the hospital to deal with her depression.

Williams sat down with Good Morning America to give the world an update on her mental health.

Williams appeared on the show with her fiancé, Chad Johnson. She told Robin Roberts, “I am just sitting here and fighting back tears. I’m just thankful to be here to tell this story.”

Williams fought her depression as hard as she could, but she eventually realized she couldn’t do it without help.

“I was like, ‘Just fight it, you’ve been here before. I’m identifying it… I just didn’t do enough,” she said. “So for months, I was slipping and slipping and slipping [and] before you knew it I was at the bottom of the pit looking up like, ‘Am I really here again?’ And I suffered by myself. I didn’t want to tell anybody.”

Williams had struggled with depression since she was 13. “I didn’t want anyone to be like, ‘Oh my gosh, here we go again. I thought you were over it.’”

Johnson knew something was wrong, but he confessed that he didn’t understand what was going on with Williams at first. “The relationship just seemed to be slipping out of my hands. I could see [her] spiraling, but I had no idea that it was depression.”

Once Williams decided to get help, she announced on Instagram, “I recently listened to the same advice I have given to thousands around the world and sought help from a great team of healthcare professionals.” She also vowed to “always lead by example as I tirelessly advocate for the betterment of those in need.”

As a celebrity in the public eye, Williams also wants to help reduce the stigma many have with mental health that often prevents them from getting treatment.

“When I was in the mental health facility, I didn’t see anybody that looked crazy,” she says. “I didn’t see anybody strapped up, I didn’t see anybody doing crazy behavior. And literally since then, I watch my mouth. I don’t call people crazy anymore. Some people… they just need help.”

View the original article at thefix.com

6 November 2018
A Medication For Postpartum Depression?

Currently, there are no FDA-approved drugs specifically to treat postpartum depression.

The FDA is considering the approval of a new medication that would treat severe postpartum depression.

While most women experience “baby blues” after childbirth, some experience more severe, longer-lasting symptoms, known as postpartum depression (PPD).

Currently there are no FDA-approved drugs specifically to treat PPD. And data on the efficacy of existing antidepressants on PPD is limited.

Brexanolone (brand name Zulresso) may change that, Fortune reports.

How does brexanolone differ from existing antidepressants?

Brexanolone mimics the functioning of the human hormone known as allopregnanolone. Allopregnanolone increases in a woman’s body during pregnancy and peaks during the third trimester. After delivery, however, levels of allopregnanolone fall abruptly, the FDA explains.

Brexanolone, an injection, works to return women to pre-delivery levels of allopregnanolone.

Postpartum depression is considered a life-threatening condition because of the risk of suicide, the FDA says. “It also has profound negative effects on the maternal-infant bond and later infant development.”

According to the FDA, suicide is the most common cause of maternal death after childbirth in the developed world. Approximately 12% of births are affected by PPD in the United States.

Despite how many women experience PPD, some say it is not talked about enough.

“I think people need to talk about it more because it’s almost like the fourth trimester, it’s part of the pregnancy,” said tennis champ Serena Williams, while sharing her own experience with PPD.

“How can I feel this way when everything is so great? I’ve had a hard time coming to terms with that, and I hesitated to even talk about this,” said TV personality Chrissy Teigen.

“I couldn’t figure out why I was so unhappy. I blamed it on being tired and possibly growing out of the role: ‘Maybe I’m just not a goofy person anymore. Maybe I’m just supposed to be a mom,’” the Lip Sync Battle host said.

Symptoms of postpartum depression can arise within the first few weeks after giving birth. Some may begin earlier (during pregnancy) or later (up to a year after birth), according to Mayo Clinic.

An FDA advisory committee voted 18-0 that Zulresso is effective in treating PPD—however, they mentioned “some reservations about the safety of home infusion,” Seeking Alpha reports.

A decision by the FDA is expected by December 19.

View the original article at thefix.com

6 November 2018
The Perilous Journey of a Tobacco Addict

Smoking was like kicking myself down the stairs every day: There she goes again. You’re nothing. Remember that.

I had no words to describe my obsession back then. I was 12 years old and I didn’t know what was happening. I would phone my friend across the street and abruptly ask her without apology, “how many did you get?” I wasn’t even that fond of her but her mother chain smoked cigarettes and didn’t keep track of them. That’s how we smoked.

Often there were a couple burning in the ashtray at the same time. We got butts off the ground, but mostly we liked them fresh out of the pack. I felt so sick after we smoked. I would stagger across the street, dizzy, barely making my way to the couch and flopping in front of the TV until the nausea and spinning wore off. It was normal to feel awful. I felt like I had the flu every day.

I’m not sure what came first, the tobacco or the addict; the addict or the tobacco. I was a preteen and tobacco had grabbed a hold of me and said “come on kid, you’re one of us now.” I couldn’t turn it around no matter how hard I tried. I wasted years and decades of my life doing the thing I hated the most in the world: smoking cigarettes.

I viewed smoking as a sign of weakness which plummeted my self-esteem. I used weed and alcohol because I always felt so sick and kept thinking something else might perk me up. Turns out my mother was right about tobacco being a gateway drug, not that I ever listened to her. To top it off there was a lot of dysfunction going on in my family and no one seemed to notice the compromised state of my well-being and morbid self-loathing. Smoking was like kicking myself down the stairs every day: There she goes again. You’re nothing. Remember that.

I wanted what I hated and hated what I wanted. I was down to 100 pounds and had to choke food down that I couldn’t taste. I could barely lift my head in the shower from all the poison and I was physically and mentally weak. I ruined my teenage years panicking and ruminating about how to get off them. Tobacco nearly destroyed my life.

The moment of clarity came to me about five years ago when I stepped out onto the deck in the middle of winter at 3 a.m. in my husband’s robe and slippers. The barometer read -28 with a wind chill factor of -38. It would’ve been dangerous if I had slipped. This was my third night in a row: I needed a fix.

How incredibly stupid it was for me to start smoking again after the 200^th time quitting. I had quit once for nine years. We were opening our cottage after a long winter, taking the weekend off and hanging out by the campfire, raking and burning leaves. I felt good to be up there again and my husband and I were really enjoying our day. Then the trigger came out of nowhere and sat on my shoulder:

“There you are. I’ve been waiting for you. It’s been a long time.”

I agreed. It had been. I needed a bit of crazy. I’ll just have a few. I knew full well I was playing with fire yet in that moment, I forgot I was an addict. I said to myself what every addict says just before a relapse.

“I got this.”

The next morning was the worst day of my life. Nine years down the drain. I’ll never forget that feeling of dread — I wanted to die and it scared me. It haunts me to this day; the nightmare of relapsing wasn’t a dream this time. I was paralyzed by defeat and self-loathing.

An hour later I was searching for keys and heading to the store. By the end of the weekend I had smoked two packs.

There I was on the deck in the middle of the night in my husband’s robe and slippers deeply inhaling the burning smoke into my lungs. As I stared down at the cigarette shivering between my gloved fingers, something hit me. What am I doing awake? I can’t even make it through the night. That need had never woken me up before. This insidious clutch was turning me into a robot and forcing me out of my warm bed. There was no rolling over and going back to sleep. I realized in that moment how much stronger and more potent they had become.

After I finished I would step back into the house, brush off all the snow and stagger to the fridge for a gulp of orange juice to equalize my body because the poison left me feeling like I was going to pass out.

I already felt like a cancer patient who was depleted and nauseated. Why did I go back? How am I going to get off them again? I would eventually drift off to sleep, not looking forward to ever waking up to face the failure in the mirror and the pair of hands around my neck saying “come with me.”

I’m not a neuroscientist but I believe nicotine dependency changes the chemistry in your brain. I’m not surprised that there’s a link between early tobacco addiction and cocaine use. I see tobacco slaves under umbrellas; smokers out shivering alone in smoking areas; panicked travelers in airports trying to remain calm, looking for a miracle exit. I see the monkey on smokers’ backs as they come in with their forced smiles to purchase their fix. I see families choosing tobacco over bread and milk. I see grubby corner stores and brightly lit 24-hour gas stations selling tobacco, lottery and gum. I see desperate people wanting to quit and not being able to. I see discrimination and lack of understanding or commitment to do anything but collect the cash off the train that’s ruining people’s health. I see addiction and struggle and a system profiting from poisoning people to death.

There is absolutely no way I’m ever going to see the 12 smokers in my life quit. I will see chronic health issues, lung and breathing problems, heart problems and cancer. It’s already starting. Oh, the excuses. I can’t blame them, really. I was there. I lived it.

I remain vigilant because you never know when nicotine will show up in disguise, pretending to be your best friend again; how it will use any opportunity when you’re exposed and vulnerable to hijack your life again. The nicotine immediately grabs hold of me and forces me into submission. I ruined a $10,000 family vacation because I relapsed on tobacco. Tobacco addiction makes you weak and it depletes your energy. That was an expensive lesson. I can’t let that happen again.

If you lined up every smoker and said: “Here’s a pill. If you take this pill, you’ll never want another cigarette,” 99% of all smokers would take the pill. But there is never going to be a pill to cure tobacco addiction, because illness is more lucrative.

Instead, cigarettes will continue to be accessible 24-7 on every street corner for your convenient demise. The tobacco industry is powerful and the government protects them. It’s a legacy this generation shouldn’t be too proud of: “This product keeps killing people, but we’ll continue to make it anyway.”

Smoking is hell. I was slowly poisoning myself to death and I couldn’t stop.

View the original article at thefix.com

6 November 2018
New Subtypes Of Depression Discovered

For a new study, researchers set out to identify the subtypes of depression using “life history and MRI data.”

New research sheds some light on why not all depression can be treated with medication, according to Medical News Today.

Researchers from the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST) in Japan have identified three new depression subtypes.

According to Professor Kenji Doya of the Neural Computation Unit, there has always been speculation about different subtypes of depression, but it had never been proven.

A research team led by Doya studied data from 134 participants, half of which had recently been diagnosed with depression. Through questionnaires and blood tests, the research team gathered information about each individual’s life history, mental health, sleep pattern and other potential stressors in their life.

The team utilized functional MRI scanners to gather information about each person’s brain activity. In doing so, they mapped 78 brain regions and the various connections between them.

First study author Tomoki Tokuda, a statistician at OIST, says the challenge in this research was developing the right tool.

“The major challenge in this study was to develop a statistical tool that could extract relevant information for clustering similar subjects together,” he said, according to Medical News Today.

Tokuda was able to create a new statistical method from which researchers could categorize more than 3,000 “measurable features”—such as childhood trauma and level of depressive episode—into five data clusters.

In doing so, researchers found that three of the five data clusters connected to different subtypes of depression. Additionally, the brain imaging shed light on the “functional connectivity” of brain areas connected to the angular gyrus, which is the region of the brain that has to do with procession language, numbers, spatial cognition and attention.

The connection could predict whether or not SSRIs—the most common type of antidepressant—could effectively treat depression.

According to the researchers, one of the subtypes that did not respond to medication correlated with “high functional connectivity as well as with childhood trauma.”

The other two subtypes of depression did respond to medication. Researchers found that this subtype had low brain connectivity and no instance of childhood trauma.

The results of this study could help doctors predict how effective certain medications and treatments may be for a patient, according to Doya.

“This is the first study to identify depression subtypes from life history and MRI data,” said Doya, according to Medical News Today. “It provides scientists studying neurobiological aspects of depression a promising direction in which to pursue their research.”

View the original article at thefix.com

6 November 2018
Oregon Tries To Break Cycle Of Jailing People With Mental Health Issues

A new initiative was created to divert people with mental illness from the criminal justice system in Oregon.

There’s been more attention given to the fact that a significant percentage of incarcerated Americans suffer from mental illness.

“The vast majority of the individuals are not violent criminals,” according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). “Once in jail, many individuals don’t receive the treatment they need and end up getting worse, not better.”

They also tend to remain in jail longer and are at a higher risk of victimization than the non-mentally ill.

Officials in Oregon are trying to break this cycle with a new initiative: the Justice Reinvestment Initiative.

A new committee of 28 officials from state law enforcement, justice and health care, government officials and more—named the Behavioral Health Justice Reinvestment Steering Committee—will submit policy recommendations for how to divert people with mental illness from the criminal justice system.

The committee is planning to submit a plan for the 2019 legislative session.

“The criminal justice system was designed to prevent, protect against and prosecute criminal offenses. It was not designed to treat mental illness or substance addiction,” said Oregon Health Authority Director Patrick Allen, who is on the committee.

Instead of cycling this population in and out of jails, where they will receive no support, Allen says there needs to be a long-term solution. “The best way to support people with behavioral health needs is to connect them to treatment in their local communities. The Justice Reinvestment process will allow us to develop solutions that better promote individual recovery while preserving community safety.”

Senate Republican Leader Jackie Winters is also on the committee. “It’s not appropriate for the jail to be the place for the mentally ill,” she said, according to the Statesman Journal. It is for the committee to figure out: “how do we treat the individual without sending them into the criminal justice system?”

The committee has begun reviewing jails across Oregon and gauging the needs of counties. They will work in concert with state health and criminal justice officials, who will contribute data to the initiative.

“We know that when we make meaningful change in behavioral health treatment and addiction recovery, we lift a burden off of our prisons, our hospitals, and our law enforcement,” said Governor Kate Brown.

“Oregon successfully used justice reinvestment to slow prison growth and expand programs that help people succeed outside of prison. By focusing on the intersection of the behavioral health and criminal justice systems in this new model of reinvestment, we can continue to improve both health and public safety,” the governor said.

View the original article at thefix.com

6 November 2018
Can Quitting Marijuana Improve Memory For Teens?

Impaired memory functions from marijuana use don’t have to be permanent.

New research on the impact of marijuana use among teenagers appears to corroborate other studies that suggest cannabis can be detrimental to the development of their brains.

However, the recent study also suggests that abstinence from marijuana use for 30 days or more may reverse its effect on memory, attention and the ability to retain new information.

The results of the research have raised additional questions about marijuana use and teenagers, including the possibility of permanent impairment if no abstinence is undertaken.

As Science News noted, studying marijuana use among this age group runs afoul of ethical issues—unlike adults, children can’t be asked to use a drug in order to study its effects. So the researchers—from Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and Harvard Medical School—circumnavigated the problem by recruiting teenagers who reported using marijuana at least once a week to participate in their study.

Eighty-eight Boston-area teens and young adults between the ages of 16 and 25 who reported weekly marijuana use were recruited, and 62 of them were offered money to stop using for a month. Payments increased as the month wore on, with some participants earning more than $500 for their abstinence.

Of the 62 that received payment, urine tests revealed that 55 of them were able to remain abstinent for the full 30 days. All 88 test subjects were also tested on levels of attention and memory; these included directional tests and the monitoring of number sequences, as well as retention of information.

The study results—which were published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry on October 30—found that while attention remained largely unchanged for the abstinent participants, they showed moderate improvement on memory tests, especially those that required them to remember lists of words. Those participants that continued to use marijuana during the test period showed no signs of improvement on these memory tests.

Neuropsychologist and study co-author Randi Schuster said that the test results showed that marijuana use can have a negative impact on how young people retain new information, but abstinence may play a role in reversing those effects. “From these data, we think that at least some of that impairment is not permanent,” she noted.

Response to the study results focused on the effect of marijuana use beyond the study time frame. “If somebody is using very heavily over a prolonged period of time, is there a point at which these functions may not recover?” asked clinical neuropsychologist April Thames of UCLA.

To answer these questions, Schuster and her fellow researchers plan additional, longer-term studies, including studying the effect on memory among 13- to 19-year-olds who abstain for a period of six months.

View the original article at thefix.com

5 November 2018
Anthony Scaramucci Thinks Trump Will Legalize Marijuana

During a recent interview, Scaramucci discussed how Trump may change his stance on legalization in the near future.

Anthony Scaramucci is predicting a greener future under the Trump administration.

Specifically, that is, he thinks the president will legalize marijuana during his last two years in office.

The former White House communications director offered his pro-pot prediction during a half-hour YouTube interview with Succeed.com founder Charles Peralo.

In the final minutes of the interview, which tackled everything from entrepreneurship to immigration to trade, Peralo lobbed a quick question about the odds of seeing Trump change his stance on marijuana legalization—and The Mooch responded without pause.

“I do. I think he’s going to legalize marijuana,” he said. “I think he’s waiting for after the midterms. I think he’s on the side of legalization. I think the attorney general probably wasn’t but I think the president is.”

The reference to stridently anti-marijuana Attorney General Jeff Sessions in the past tense prompted a follow-up. “He’s on his way out most likely?” Peralo asked.

“Yeah, I think he is,” Scaramucci responded. “Well I don’t wanna speak about that because anything happens in the Trump world.”

It’s not clear, as Marijuana Moment pointed out, whether Scaramucci’s prediction is based on gut feeling or insider knowledge—but he’s not the only politico highlighting the possibility of pot reform.

U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher told Fox Business that the president made a “solid commitment” to addressing pot legalization after the Nov. 6 elections.

“I have been talking to people inside the White House who know and inside the president’s entourage,” Rohrabacher told the TV network. “I have talked to them at length. I have been reassured that the president intends on keeping his campaign promise.”

The idea, Rohrabacher said, would be to greenlight medical marijuana on a federal level and leave individual states to decide on the legality of recreational pot.

“I would expect after the election we will sit down and we’ll start hammering out something that is specific and real,” the Congressman added.

To some, marijuana reform seems like a political necessity for the president. Conservative blog Hot Air predicted that any failure to approve pot could turn into a Democratic talking point against Trump in 2020.

“He could short-circuit that by getting out in front of the issue,” the website predicted. “Any other Republican president might expect blowback from seniors and evangelicals for making a move like that, but Trump isn’t ‘any other Republican president.’”

View the original article at thefix.com

5 November 2018
Opioid 10 Times Stonger Than Fentanyl Approved By FDA Amid Controversy

“It is certain that Dsuvia will worsen the opioid epidemic and kill people needlessly,” said one critical health expert.

Amid controversy and despite warnings from some in the medical community, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) last week green-lit a new opioid called Dsuvia, a drug estimated to be 10 times as strong as fentanyl.

The powerful painkiller is an under-the-tongue version of sufentanil, available in a pre-filled single-dose applicator, according to the federal agency. In theory, it would be used in hospitals, surgery centers and emergency departments.

Though it wouldn’t be available for take-home prescriptions, some worry that it will be diverted and abused—to deadly effect.

“It is certain that Dsuvia will worsen the opioid epidemic and kill people needlessly,” Dr. Sidney Wolfe of Public Citizen’s Health Research Group said in a press release. “It will be taken by medical personnel and others for whom it has not been prescribed. And many of those will overdose and die.”

FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb released a statement defending his agency’s decision, highlighting the drug’s potential for use in war in light of its specific packaging and formulation.

Because it is sublingual, the painkiller doesn’t necessitate venous access and doesn’t require that the patient be alert enough to swallow. That could make it incredibly useful in extreme emergency situations, such as on the battlefield—and that’s what drew the Department of Defense to take interest in the drug.

“This opioid formulation, along with Dsuvia’s unique delivery device, was a priority medical product for the Pentagon because it fills a specific and important, but limited, unmet medical need in treating our nation’s soldiers on the battlefield,” Gottlieb wrote.

Indeed, the Pentagon has poured millions of dollars in funding research by AcelRx, the drug company behind Dsuvia, according to the Washington Post.

Despite the assurances Gottlieb sought to offer, his agency generated controversy not just for its decision to approve the drug, but also for the way in which they did it.

The FDA advisory committee that recommended allowing the painkiller voted 10-3 in favor of the drug—even though committee chair Dr. Raeford Brown was out of town speaking at a medical conference, according to the Washington Post.

Brown condemned the decision, raising concerns about the efficacy data and the sponsor’s response to safety questions.

“Clearly the issue of the safety of the public is not important to the commissioner, despite his attempts to obfuscate and misdirect,” Brown wrote. “I will continue to hold the agency accountable for their response to the worst public health problem since the 1918 influenza epidemic.”

View the original article at thefix.com

5 November 2018
Slipknot’s Corey Taylor On Addiction: I Wouldn’t Be Who I Am Now

Taylor reveals that it’s only been within the past year that he’s finally become a fan of who he is.

Slipknot’s Corey Taylor says there’s a lot about his own recovery and his new attitude towards it on his band’s new album and their Halloween single, “All Out Life.”

Taylor has spoken openly about his struggles with depression and having been the target of child abuse, and his coming to terms with the darkness he’s struggled with having changed his perspective not only on his life, but how he sees himself as well.

“I’m looking to the world through clearer eyes,” Taylor said on Beats1. “I’m also just starting to make peace with the fact that there are dark pieces of my chapters that I’ve had to relinquish and let go of. I’ve said, ‘Look, if it wasn’t for all these dark things happening to me, I wouldn’t be the guy I am right now.’”

He says he’s also realizing his priorities have changed.

“This has made me deal with the fact that I am an addict. It’s made me deal with the fact that I’m in my 40s, I’ve got kids, and I need to take care of them. I’m dealing with all of these crazy things in my life that make me ‘me,’ and yet I should be embracing the fact that I’m alive,” he revealed. “I should be embracing the fact that I’m a father, I should be embracing the fact that I’m in two great bands.”

Taylor has in the past stood up to take on the role of a sober role model.

“It’s stronger to be that badass—to be the guy who sees it all, remembers it all, feels it all, and, at the end of the night, doesn’t need that quote-unquote party, you know. Because it’s hard in this industry; people are made to feel like they don’t belong, because they’re not a part of that. And it’s a shame,” he said in a past interview.

He’s lost a friend to the industry before—fellow Slipknot bass player Paul Gray in 2010. Gray died of a drug overdose caused by morphine and fentanyl.

It’s only recently that Taylor’s been able to forgive and learn to love himself.

“I was never a huge Corey Taylor fan, until maybe the last year or so,” he admitted. “I was like, ‘What? There’s a lot about me that’s really, really cool. I’ve luckily had a lot of great people around me to encourage that and go, ‘We’ve been saying that for years.’”

Slipknot’s newest album should be out next year, and the band is scheduled to headline Download Festival 2019. Their new single, “All Out Life,” debuted on Halloween.

View the original article at thefix.com

5 November 2018
Chris Cornell’s Family Sues His Doctor Over Singer’s Suicide

Vicky Cornell believes the doctor negligently prescribed her husband mood-altering drugs.

Chris Cornell shocked the rock world when he suddenly took his own life in May last year. Now his wife, Vicky Cornell, and their children are suing the doctor who prescribed Chris a slew of prescription drugs that Vicky believes led him to his death.

People obtained the lawsuit against Dr. Robert Koblin, which accuses him of “negligently and repeatedly [prescribing] mind-altering drugs and controlled substances,” including lorazepam and oxycodone.

Koblin is accused of failing to consider Chris’ history of drug abuse and not properly following up on how the medications he prescribed were affecting Chris, the suit alleges. The drugs “clouded [Cornell’s] judgment and caused him to engage in dangerous, impulsive behaviors that he was unable to control, which cost him his life.”

Chris was found dead at age 52, just hours after finishing a live performance with his band Audioslave. He had long struggled with substance abuse.

“I went from being a daily drug user at 13 to having bad drug experiences and quitting drugs by the time I was 14,” he told Rolling Stone in a 1994 interview.

At the time of his death, the late Soundgarden frontman had seven different drugs in his system, and although none of them were the actual cause of his death, Vicky believes an excess of anxiety drugs drove him to suicide.

“Approximately a year before he died, he was prescribed a benzodiazepine to help him sleep,” she said. “He had torn his shoulder. The pain in the shoulder was waking him up at night and it was keeping him up.”

There was no way he was suicidal, a family source believes. In the two weeks before his death, he delayed travel plans twice in order to avoid inclement weather. He even opted to drive a rental car for seven and a half hours instead of flying.

“Clearly someone who was so hesitant and fearful to fly in these situations valued their life,” the source said. “These are not indications of someone with no regard to their well-being.”

Following his death, Vicky said she found it hard not to blame herself. And, despite her husband being in a rock band, Chris was not another case of a hard rocker’s lifestyle catching up to him.

“My husband was the furthest thing from a rock star junkie. He just wasn’t,” she said. “He was the best husband, the greatest father. I lost my soulmate and the love of my life.”

View the original article at thefix.com

5 November 2018