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Quarterly Newsletter of Alice W. Lee-Bloem, M.D. October 2007 I. Testimonial II. Reflections III. Lessons Learned this Quarter IV. Improvements in Care I am so grateful for Dr. Alice Lee-Bloem and what she is doing for the field of psychiatry and her patients. Being a physician myself and having been hospitalized as well as medicated for a number of diagnoses, including lupus-related organic brain disorder, bipolar disorder, and psychosis, I applaud Dr. Lee-Bloem for her courage and willingness to use alternative and holistic approaches to healing with the goal of healing patients versus status quo symptomatic treatment. My story began when I was diagnosed with systemic lupus erythematosus at 13 years of age. My daily medications included high-dose corticosteroids that altered my appearance, causing weight gain and a cushingnoid appearance as well as emotional lability and mood swings. At 15 years, I woke up in the hospital after an episode of what my doctors called psychosis and central nervous system involvement possibly spurred on by acute renal failure. When I was in medical school, I developed joint pain, and my rheumatologist from the United States put me on the highest dose of oral corticosteroids to date. I subsequently started hearing voices. I was immediately hospitalized and given the diagnosis of bipolar disorder. My experiences with traditional psychiatry were generally negative until I met with Dr. Lee-Bloem. I immediately liked Dr. Lee-Bloem because she listened to me and heard what I was saying. Being from Taiwan, she could relate with what it was like to have Chinese parents and the emotional issues involved (though I was born in the US, my family was from Taiwan). Unlike other traditional psychiatrists, she had other tools for healing in her armamentarium than just psychotropic medications. Under Dr. Lee-Bloem's treatment approach and supplemental regimen, I felt my health and energy improve. However, in May 2007, I went to Taiwan for several weeks. When I came back, my health deteriorated between follow-up sessions, and I was hospitalized once again for a "psychotic episode," which was likely associated with a deterioration of my renal function during my trip to Taiwan. Unfortunately Dr. Lee-Bloem was not notified of my condition until after I already had been admitted to the hospital by my family. I was in the hospital for three weeks, receiving antipsychotic medications, and when I left, I was a sedated mess with dry mouth, constipation, and foggy, unfocused thinking. After being discharged, I started seeing Dr. Lee-Bloem weekly. She put me back on my nutriceuticals and slowly weaned me off the medications to minimize withdrawal. I also began using her Infinite Intention CD on a regular basis. The positive affirmations from her CD were effective in facilitating my healing process. It is now the middle of October, 2007, five months after my hospitalization, and I am feeling like my old self again. I have returned to my job full time and am doing well at work. I am sleeping normally and have lost excess weight. I have been off all my medications since mid-August and have remained healthy and well. In addition, I saw my rheumatologist about a month ago, and my kidney function had returned to normal, and the protein level had decreased more than 50% without being on any immunosuppressive medications. My journey through recovery has truly been miraculous. A few weeks ago, I met with one of the girls who was in the hospital with me, and she was still heavily sedated, weak, and on disability. My healing with Dr. Lee-Bloem doesn't just involve healing the brain, but my whole body, mind, and spirit. Through her work, I am able to get well and maintain my health without medications or their accompanying side effects. Most amazingly, my faith in medicine, and especially psychiatry, has been restored through Dr. Lee-Bloem. I trust Dr. Lee-Bloem - she truly cares about getting her patients well! By Miriam W.
In school, we understand that good teachers are invaluable for facilitating understanding. Students who truly want to learn will go to great lengths to learn from these teachers. For wisdom is priceless and more valuable than knowledge, and good teachers are a well of wisdom. In life, we have good teachers that are invaluable for facilitating understanding. Students who truly want to learn will go to great lengths to learn from the best teachers. For wisdom is priceless and more valuable than knowledge, and good teachers are a well of wisdom. The mystery of Life's Teachers is that these teachers are both invisible and visible, seemingly haphazard yet simultaneously precise and calculated. One does not go up to a good teacher in life, tap the teacher on the shoulder, and request to be enrolled. Life's Teachers come to you and in the fog of your forgetfulness, and you fail to recognize their presence. I learn from one of life's best teachers: mental illness. My patients and I are students who learn from this teacher day in and day out. I believe that to be a student of this teacher, you must be among the elite. But even among the elite, there are those who will succeed in learning and those who will not. The lessons that this teacher teaches are beyond difficult, they make the challenges of olympians look like child's play--for there is no greater fear than losing one's self, and no greater challenge than finding one's Self--for the self of the body and the Self of the soul are not the same. It is the difference between being lost and being found. Being a successful student of life requires something both insubstantial and substantial. It's hard to say when a person enters life's classroom whether he or she would be able to master the challenges or not. With mental illness as one's teacher, the price is even more demanding. Will one have to pay with an arm or a leg? Will one need to surrender one's job or one's honor? What will be required to win wisdom from mental illness? Over the years, I have come to see how patients and doctors succeed or fail in their lessons. I am moved by the magnificence of my patients as they master lesson after lesson, gathering wisdom as they learn and not knowing how truly breathtakingly brave they are. Mental illness asks that students master the following basics of life's lessons: 1. Understanding that one's Self is more than physical matter. The mind is understood as something like a radio, a receiver and translator, but not the whole Being. Sometimes this radio stops working or receives the wrong messages, but it does not mean that the essence of one's Self has changed or disappeared. To value and even love one's life as a state of being beyond physical matter is an opportunity given to each student of mental illness. 2. Humility. Mental illness and the stigma associated with such an experience allow for an opportunity to grow in humility. The acceptance of humility not as a mantle that one takes on and off, but rather as an essential quality of self is the greatest and hardest of lessons to master. Humility is an essential quality to development and growth. For before one reaches out for greater wisdom, there is an awareness of one's own ignorance. Before the awareness of one's own ignorance, there is humility. 3. Fortitude. Disappointment, suffering, and loss allow for the practice of courage and strength to gather oneself up from the ashes and to rebuild a life shattered by illness. Fortitude is a quality in every one of my successful patients who overcome their illness and maintain wellness. They overcome through sheer persistance and dogged work. They do not give up. 4. Compassion. It is natural to be self-absorbed and judgmental of others. Without being challenged, there is no motivation to change from this state of being. Under the intense challenges given to all who suffer from mental illness, there is the opportunity to find relief through forgetting self, connecting with others, and developing tolerance. To have mental illness, even in these modern times, is like having leprosy in times of old. The shame and stigma associated with having this condition still prevails throughout society, even among the professionals who treat this condition. When one is a pariah within society, one can finally and clearly see how necessary compassion is, how compassion may be lacking, and how one can be more compassionate towards others. There is more to life than our birth and death. There is also the before-we-were-born and the after-we-die. Take a moment to consider mental illness as an invitation and a means toward rapid growth and enlightenment that has eternal value and infinite worth. Mental illness can be transformed by our will for growth into a blessing. It is not an accident or punishment, but an opportunity. I want to honor all those who have bravely shouldered the challenges of mental illness. In my practice, my patients are also my teachers. Through my patients I am taught great lessons on each one of the qualities listed above. The patients who have taught me the most are sometimes the ones who have suffered the longest. I have seen them during their most difficult trials, and I have watched them get up and move forward with their lives, quietly and unassumingly. Their humility and perseverance remind me of poignant music that stirs the heart and makes me want to weep, but I don't know why. I tell them, "You should write about your life," but I know that their lives are indescribable, because there are no words to capture their valor, their private victories. It would be like trying to capture the beauty and fragrance of a rose . . . blossoming on the top of a snow capped mountain in the Himalayas.
For years I racked my brains for a solution. How can I teach patients about the reality of something that cannot be touched or seen and is beyond the range of sensory perception? Energy medicine: how do I prove to my patients that it exists and that it works--in their first session with me? The answer that finally came to me was just too easy. I was sitting across from a patient, and I was explaining to her about energy medicine, or as I put it "the quantum physics of healing," and how our bodies are run by various forms of energy: biochemical (nutrients), electrical (nervous system and cardiovascular system), electromagnetic (automatically comes from electrical currents), and solar (creation of vitamin D from sunshine). Then I explained that our thoughts also affect our physical health, strength, and functioning. This can be easily demonstrated by how muscle strength shifts (basic muscle testing technique) when we entertain positive vs. negative thoughts, emotions, and words. See below for how muscle testing is done. I demonstrated this process to the patient, and sure enough, her arm was strong when she held a positive thought, emotion, or word and became weak when she held a negative thought, emotion, or word. Then the idea struck me that we could use her muscle strength as an indicator of her whole body's strength, stamina, and energy state. We would eliminate any affect that positive or negative thoughts, emotions, or words may have on her muscle tone by simply asking her to remain neutral, clearing her mind of any thoughts, emotions, or words that might confound the results. Then, while she was doing certain mental maneuvers and healing techniques, I asked her to extend her arm so that we could test her muscle strength during these mental maneuvers and healing techniques. The results were so striking and convincing that every patient since this approach have come away after the first intake appointment completely convinced of the power of thoughts on physical strength, stamina, and health. Here are the list of activities that I run the patient through and the consistent results I obtained: 1) I tell the patient that I will be mentally sending him/her positive life energy -- energy that exists all around us that supports a healthy, perfect, and wonderful life -- and all the patient does is set an intention to be receptive. Then while I am sending him/her life energy, I test the patient for muscle strength and stamina. Result: the strength of the patient increases tremendously. I tell them it is 20 times stronger, and the patients never disagree with me, because they can feel their own strength, and the difference is so incredibly remarkable and obvious. 2) I tell the patient that I will send them life energy, but this time they will pretend that they are skeptical scientists who don't believe life energy exists, because they refuse to accept anything that can't be measured or be sensed. While I am sending them life energy, I test their muscle strength again. Result: the strength of the patient decreases from baseline. Again the difference is remarkable and cannot be disputed. 3) I teach the patient how to do "Energy Breaths" and test the patient while he/she is doing this energy technique. Energy Breaths, simply summarized, is visualizing positive life energy flowing in with each inhalation and releasing negative energy and blockages with each exhalation, directing the negative energy towards the center of the earth where it can be eliminated. I test the patient's muscle strength during Energy Breaths. Result: the strength of the patient increases tremendously. 4) Now I tell the patient to set an intention during the Energy Breaths that the effect of this technique will last throughout the rest of the day even when the patient is not actively and consciously engaged in doing Energy Breaths. This time I ask the patient to stop doing any energy work before I do the muscle testing. Result: the strength of the patient is still tremendously increased even when not consciously doing Energy Breaths. In addition, I also teach the patient to set an intention for the duration to last "their entire life, from the time of conception to the end of their life" to help them extend the power of their intentions. 5) I now get a baseline again of the patient's strength when I apply pressure on his/her arm. Then I ask the patient to think of a negative thought while I retest the muscle strength. The patient's muscle strength dramatically weakens. I tell the patient to do the Energy Breaths with the intention that life energy will be a shield and protection against any negative effects from negative thoughts and emotions. Duration is set for the person's entire life. Result: the strength increases noticeably, but the patient may not be completely successful the first time. If not completely successful the first time, I simply ask the patient to do it again. I do not assist them. Usually by the second time, the muscle strength remains perfectly unperturbed when the same negative thought is held in mind. By the end of our little energy medicine demonstration, the patient's muscle strength is much stronger than when they first stepped through the door. The difference is so remarkable that it leaves no room for doubt after the demonstration. Thoughts do have an immediate, dramatic, and undeniable impact on physical health and strength. Any patient with an intact, rational thought process can now know it without a doubt within the first session. Not only can the principles of energy medicine be demonstrated, but the patient leaves the session feeling completely empowered and ready to heal themselves. It's just too easy to prove. Now why did it take me almost five years to figure this out? * To do muscle testing, have the patient extend his/her arm and hold/resist while you push down on the arm a few inches above the wrist with your fingers, using gradually increasing pressure. Repeat this until both of you can reproduce the effect consistently each time. Get a baseline reading of how strong the patient is, then see how the patient's thoughts, emotions, and words affect the muscle strength, or in other words, the ability of the patient to resist and hold, when you apply increasing pressure on the arm. A change in the strength on the patient's arm is an indicator of the patient's overall energy state. This process is ultimately under the control of the patient's intention. Think of intention as the control knob and the energy state as the setting of the thermostat. The clues came in small bits over the years--patterns seen in patients that at first seemed disconnected, began to have a temporal pattern associated with certain types of medication being withdrawn, and later pointed to possible underlying causes. Following these clues over the years has been a feat worthy of Sherlock Holmes. But eventually, I made my deductions, intervened with caution, and caught the culprit! The clues have been the following: 1) It is a pattern so commonly seen that it has been taken for granted as part of the withdrawal process. For those doctors courageous enough to make it a habit to withdraw patients off their medications, it is known that the "last few milligrams of medication is always the hardest to lower." Why is that? I have wondered. What has happened between those first lowerings and the last lowerings to make the process so much more difficult later in the withdrawal process? Could it be that something in the body has been deteriorating or changing gradually and insidiously to make it increasingly difficult to lower medications? 2) Patients withdrawing from antidepressants complained of increased problems with acne. This would happen usually after most of the withdrawal process had almost been completed, i.e., towards the very end of the withdrawal process. It didn't make sense for the acne problem to be due to increasing liver toxicity issues, since the lowering of the medication should actually lower the body's toxicity load over time and presumably help lessen the toxicity load in the liver. The acne was not a problem with post-menopausal women. It was sometimes associated with changes in the timing and quality of the menses. 3) Patients coming off of antipsychotics almost routinely experience a decrease in appetite and an increase in insomnia if appropriate interventions are not put into place. The decreased appetite does not seem to be due to decreased gastrointestinal functioning, since antipsychotic withdrawal routinely results in better, more regular bowel movements. The patients simply lost their appetite. What is the underlying cause for their appetite dysregulation and does insomnia have the same underlying cause? 4) A few patients on antipsychotic medications will develop problems with increased prolactin and begin to lactate. Antipsychotics are noted in the Physicians Desk Reference to have the ability to increase prolactin. Therefore, antipsychotics affect the pituitary gland where prolactin is made. 5) Research has shown that serotonin has the ability to decrease milk production, which is just opposite to the effect from antipsychotics. In addition, the pineal gland is the richest site of serotonin in the brain. In the pineal gland serotonin converts to melatonin. Melatonin not only regulates sleep but it also helps to put the brakes on excessive secretion of hormones. With these clues, I turned my attention to the pineal and pituitary glands during medication withdrawal. During a recent conference called, "Natural Treatments for Balancing Female Hormones" I learned a useful piece of information that adding pineal or pituitary glandular extracts helps to regulate these glands, i.e., if the activity is too high, it will help to bring it down, and if the activity is too low, it will help to bring it up. So I bought a few bottles of pineal/pituitary glandular extracts from Deseret Biologicals, a homeopathic company in Utah that also sells glandular extracts. What I have found from clinical experience when I added pineal and pituitary glandular extracts to ameliorate withdrawal side effects from lowering antidepressants and antipsychotics are the following: 1) Patients once again can lower their medications easily, just like at the start of their withdrawal process. 2) Acne problems improve. 3) Insomnia decreases. 4) Menses are better regulated. 5) Anxiety, stress, and irritability decrease. The effects of antidepressants and antipsychotics on the pineal and pituitary glands have been marginalized compared to the extensive focus and research on these medications' effects on serotonin and dopamine receptors. However, when working on withdrawal from these medications, it is imperative that the clinician be aware of how withdrawal affects these glands over time. If the clinician neglects to address this aspect of withdrawal, the patient may ultimately not be able to tolerate withdrawal from these medications, or the process may become so slow and drawn out that the patient can't afford to pay for the whole withdrawal process before becoming bankrupt in the process. To date, I believe that supporting the pineal and pituitary glands during withdrawal is such an important breakthrough, that it is the equivalent of discovering that 5-HTP supports the gastrointestinal system when withdrawing patients from SSRIs. The clinical benefits are simply invaluable. In looking for some information on the connection between the pineal gland and antidepressants, I found a very useful review by Charly Groenendijk from the Netherlands updated on March 11, 2003 called "Serotonin and the Pineal Gland." You can find it on http://www.antidpressantsfacts.com/pinealstory.htm. www.holisticpsychiatrist.com |
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