BLOG No. NINE

Welcome back to blog number nine. In previous blogs we have discussed the difficulties clinicians face in treating anxiety and depression, due to the fact that doctors tend to still cling to the old monoamine theory of anxiety and depression (where deficiencies of serotonin and norepinephrine cause it) and the much more accurate glutamic theory, that relies more on the balance of GABA (brain relaxer) and glutamate (brain stimulator) and their sequential effects on type 2 dopamine.

As promised, I’ve set forth a grand unification theory of psychiatry on a simple line graph, a spectrum, not unlike the light spectrum we learned about in seventh grade Science class. (Remember ROYGBIV? These are the colors of lights defused through a prism). For those of you who flunked seventh grade science, hold your beer glass up to the overhead light at your local watering hole, and look at the flat surface of the bar until you see the rainbow of colors. Pretty much the same damn thing.

Now, instead of all the colors, think of all of the different psychiatric diseases regarding anxiety and depression. Where might they be on that continuum? And what chemistry might they correspond to? Instead of red and yellow on the left side, think of general, unipolar depression. Instead of the darker colors of blue and violet, think of the disorders that resemble bipolar diseases. Okay, have I blown your mind yet? Thought so, so it must be time for a joke break.

Hey, I just found out that I am colorblind! The diagnosis came out of the purple!

Okay, let’s start out with some basics on our graph. Everything will be color-coded. The more the “x” is to the left, the more yellow it will be, indicating serotonin. The more we move to the right, the more blue it will appear as D2 dopamine plays a role. (I chose these colors as they correspond to the way neurochemicals appear on a PET scan).

So pick 20 random people with anxiety and depression. Depending on your symptoms, they could land to the left, more towards the middle, or more towards the right. Let’s look at that simple graph.

The idea is that the more right the ”X’s” go, the more D2 symptoms the patients have. The more that they hang left, the more serotonin symptoms occur. Let’s see what that might look like…

When I chat with the patient, I try to find out where they are on that line. This lets me know more about their chemistry that is causing the problem. And knowing that, of course, lets me know what treatment would work best.

Again, in my practice this works almost 100% of the time. It has been time-tested on over 20,000 patients.

Okay, I see our time is short, so I will save more of this for blog number 10. And whoops, I spilled my Chardonnay on the cat, and she is once again speed-dialing PETA. Bitch! Until next time when we pick up our “spectrum of psychiatry” info, this is Dr. G saying-

thank you for reading, and keep the faith!