Postpartum Depression
Natural Postpartum Depression Help
Is there a Safe, Drug-Free, Alternative Medicine, or Natural Remedies?
Postpartum depression may be the label they have given you for pain, fatigue, vivid dreams waking you at night, nausea, anxiety, or symptoms mislabeled as depression.
I met a woman who was taking Effexor® for the past two years, preceded by two years of many other antidepressant medications that didn't help her. I asked, "Why are you taking this medication?" She answered that she has "postpartum depression," and takes it so that she doesn't get as many "panic attacks."
POSTPARTUM DEPRESSION IN BEVERLY HILLS
An Inappropriate Diagnostic Label
Definition: Postpartum: "Postpartum" is the Latin word for "after childbirth." It is understood to denote a limited time period directly after childbirth—some references say that it can be up to six weeks after giving birth—but it is definitely not ongoing. Yet this woman's doctor (via her current diagnosis) says that she is still “postpartum” after four years. The word "postpartum" doesn't match the present time frame — four years after giving birth! She does not have postpartum depression. She is not postpartum anymore.
Definitions: Depression & Panic: "Depression" can be defined as the lowering or reducing of something. Panic on the other hand describes frenzy. Are these the same? No, they are opposites. She has been given a destructive "diagnosis," a psychological label of "postpartum depression" then she was medicated with a drug that supposedly treats depression and anxiety (Effexor®), but she says she gets "panic attacks" anyway.
What is this drug doing in her brain? Is it depressing the “panic attacks,” elevating her from the "depression," or just temporarily making everything less noticeable without fundamentally changing anything at all about her underlying condition? Is patching-up her symptoms like this going to be dangerous in the future? This type of treatment is not a sustainable choice.
This drug is an example of a class of drugs called “serotonin-norepinephrine re-uptake inhibitors.” They inhibit normal processes that happen on a microscopic level in the brain. The manufacturer’s website gives a strong warning that states “Patients who are started on therapy should be observed closely for clinical worsening, suicidality [sic], or unusual changes in behavior.”(1) There are many other unwanted side effects of this class of drugs just like the similar SSRI drug class. Some psychiatric drug side effects include physical and psychological dependence, anxiety and agitation, insomnia, bizarre vivid nightmares, nervousness, and sleepiness.(1,2) These are exactly some of the symptoms her doctor is trying to cover-up!
Patient reflexion about drugs just covering her symptoms
To increase her awareness I asked her: "If you were to stop taking this medication, what do you think would happen?" She immediately got defensive. Psychoactive drugs are addictive, they need to be weaned-off over time. I had to assure her it was just a hypothetical question. She answered by saying she thought her "panic attacks" would soon come back, more frequently.
"So, is your medication helping you to get better, or is it just covering up your symptoms?" With a new perspective, she said "It's just covering up my symptoms. As a matter of fact, even though I'm taking this medicine, there is still some anxiety that I always feel underneath it all. That part never goes away."
Do you see what's happening here? In reality, her underlying condition isn't fundamentally improving, and now she’s feeling stuck. After two years of use, there is still no plan to even wean her off of this addictive substance. She's still the same, but now she's addicted to a drug. It is ironic that a slogan for selling Effexor® is "Break The Cycle" which insinuates that a person could take this addictive drug for a short time, then stop and be better. Is that the way this drug was prescribed? Clearly not. After two years on this drug, and two years of other similar drugs beforehand, she hasn't broken out of any cycle.
Despite all the medications she has taken for four years, she’s not any better. She needs the correct path to fully heal from her awful condition. The only way, is to take a step back from two faulty premises that her prescribing doctor initially assumed, and bestowed upon her: the misguided belief that her problem should be labeled as “postpartum depression,” and the disempowering belief that her feelings are “caused by her brain:” two dangerous medical beliefs. What's your alternative to four years of addictive antidepressants?
The brain is at the end of the line in the game being played by the body. Imagine a set of dominos, all standing upright. All you have to do is push the first one and all the others will follow. Notice the last domino. Is it the last domino's fault that it has fallen, or was something else at fault? This is the same way we can look at how your body is organized. Your brain is not the cause; it is just the receiver.
ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE IN LOS ANGELES
Alternative Medicine vs. Depression Treatment
Your depression is not the starting point, it is the end point. It is a symptom, not the cause. According to Dr. Joe Dispenza, the brain is a processing station, receiving four hundred billion pieces of information per second. It is not the cause of the information; it is the receiver: the interpreter of all the sensory information delivered to it from the body.
If the information coming to your brain is distorted, irritating, insufficient, excessive, or random, then your brain will react to those aberrant stimuli. Your brain reacts normally—it’s the information it receives which is aberrant. In chronic disease like neurodegeneration, the brain eventually changes too. Depression is the symptom that things are off track.
What got you off track is not your brain. Depression is not caused by a problem originating in the brain. It is the many processes in the body that need support first. Why then would a drug that shuts down the brain's ability to normally react be used in such cases? Wouldn't that be short sighted, bad science and bad medicine? We have been bombarded with false information about the brain's role in too many erroneously labeled "mental disorders." Tragically, this misinformation dominates depression treatments.
Not a brain disorder
Your brain reacts to the information it receives. When that information is grossly irritating, your brain will react. Therefore, we must address the irritation from your body, bombarding your brain. Dampening the receiving and discerning ability of your brain is a poor choice. Considering the dangerous side effects of psychoactive drugs, they are just a risky, temporary, symptom management scheme.
We need to pinpoint the most likely culprits that "push the first domino" producing four years of erroneously labeled "postpartum depression," with addictive drug prescriptions by Los Angeles doctors.Old beliefs, outdated perspective
Why do Los Angeles doctors “manage” women that way? One reason is because of an outdated, demeaning and dangerous medical belief: "It’s all in your head." If any of your medical decisions are based on such an outdated opinion, then the treatment protocols used on you will be outdated too. Optimal health will never have a chance to manifest for patients embedded in a medical system that proclaims: “it’s all in your head.”
The second reason is in the way that the current medical paradigm generally compartmentalizes symptoms into segmented, local areas of the body, and labels those areas (or areas immediately adjacent) as the cause of the problem: Adult ADD or brain fog, and forgetfulness for example. Acknowledging interconnections in the body is not the medical norm today. Medicine’s history of unnecessary tonsillectomies, appendectomies, and stomach bypasses for weight loss, illustrates their general concept of “independent body parts,” not integrative parts.
It’s no wonder that we have people figuratively being told "it’s all in your head," and getting treated with antidepressants for a "mental disorder," whether the symptoms are those labeled as depression or panic attacks. Unfortunately, it’s part of the established status quo of conventional Medicine. However, there are alternative medicine systems, outside of this status quo. You have a choice.Your natural alternative medicine
An integrative chiropractic doctor who uses Functional Medicine Nutrition has an advantage in addressing the body vs. a medical doctor (the best Los Angeles chiropractors are California Chiropractic Association members). The key advantage is the chiropractor's starting premise: Your body should be able to regulate itself, if your healing potential were not blocked to some degree.
In alternative medicine your depression is not the starting point, it is the end point. The "mental disorder" starts in the body, not the brain. The best chiropractors correctly focus on the starting points of depression, understanding your body as the source. Your body parts naturally affect and depend on each other, integrated by a master controlling system called your nervous system.
Biological information comes from every part of your body. It is integrated through your nervous system and interpreted by your brain (basic brain neuro-science). All of your body parts are connected. The dangerous medical belief: "it’s all in your head," ignores these facts.
Example: After an injury, the body and brain respond. One response may be that the spinal muscles get tighter. Then, back pain may be next. The body-brain responds, domino after domino. The heart starts to pump faster or harder (references 3,4,5), sleep becomes impaired, the onset of nausea, impaired attention, nervousness—all these are symptoms relating to the initial stimulus. The body-brain sequentially responds. Is the solution to shut down the brain’s responsiveness with an addictive drug? No!
Alternative, Drug-Free Systems are available today—like chiropractic with nutritional kinesiology and Functional Medicine —to reestablish normal function, rejuvenate, and rebuild health— even after drugs and and surgery have left their scars. Chiropractors can use entirely alternative, non-drug, physical procedures to help your body. Visit a integrative chiropractor who uses natural remedies like whole food concentrates, whole herbs, and homeopathic remedies, instead of poisonous pharmaceuticals that yield so many devastating side effects.
We also have the Alpha-Stim in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles. The Alpha-Stim® SCS can be an adjunct to better recovery.You can try the AlphaStim. here, in Beverly Hills. The Alpha-Stim SCS (Stress Control System) cranial electrotherapy stimulator (CES device) can help with treatment of anxiety, depression, insomnia and other stress-related "disorders;" a drug-free treatment which helps your brain produce relaxing, calming alpha waves.
In order to really “break the cycle,” the integrative chiropractic doctor may use a multifaceted physical, nutritional and neuro-emotional (not psycho-logical) approach to your body.(4) There is no magic medicine for all people experiencing depression because the causes of depression in different people may be entirely different for each person. Each person should be physically examined to determine their best treatment. You need an integrative, non-drug, non-medical treatment.
Addictive drugs confuse your brain and are a shock to your nervous system. Protect yourself from addictive antidepressants with a safe, natural remedies system; a safe, drug-free approach for optimizing health—instead of just covering-up depression symptoms with drugs. It is time to fundamentally get better, and that is a beautiful thing. Call today. Let's get started.r
References:1. https://www.effexorxr.com2. www.petitiononline.com/effexor (page no longer available)3. Chaitow, Leon, Soft-Tissue Manipulation: A Practitioner's Guide to the Diagnosis and Treatment of Soft-Tissue Dysfunction and Reflex Activity (1987)4. ‘Muscle contraction related to heart’ Humphreys, P. W. and Lind, A.R., Journal of Physiology (1963), pp. 120-1355. Jacobson, E., 'Principles Underlying Coronary Heart Disease,' Cardiologia (1955), pp. 26-836. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 1999 Jun; 88(3 Pt 1): 1019-28.