Women,mental health,and hormones

Women experience depression twice as much as men, and four times as much anxiety—yet their mental health has not had high priority. Biological, social and psychological factors mean that men and women experience mental illness differently, so why shouldn’t gender be considered when developing treatments? All in the Mind hears about innovative hormonal therapy which may provide effective relief.

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@Sarad http://bipolarmums.com/

Who says it isn’t?

Believe me, this is not a subject that has been ignored at any point in the 125-year history of psychiatry. Charcot, Janet, Kraepelin, Freud, Bleuler and Jung were all over this in the 1880s.

One has to be careful with some of the hormone therapies out there, however. There is a lot of quackery around this stuff.

Moreover, hormone therapies have no effect whatsoever on cognitive distortions. If she has delusional beliefs, hormone are not going to fix that.

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Miss R was a 52-year-old woman with a history of schizophrenia which began after the birth of a child she gave up for adoption in her late twenties. She had been treated with olanzapine 15 mg oral per day for the past 10 years and had been very well, with no hospitalisations. Miss R worked as a sales assistant and lived in her own apartment. However from the age of 50, her mental state deteriorated significantly and she experienced auditory hallucinations and paranoid delusions. She believed that the CIA had implanted a microchip into her brain and that she was under constant surveillance. She described hearing several spies talking about her. Miss R’s quality of life suffered greatly. She lost her job, was unable to live independently, and financially existed on welfare payments. Miss R lived in a derelict boarding house and had repeated hospitalisations with no real improvement. Miss R did not respond to a succession of treatment trials with a variety of second generation antipsychotic medications. She was treated with adjunctive estradiol (100 mcg transdermal estradiol) and had a progesterone secreting intrauterine device (IUD) inserted. The hormone treatment was added to her antipsychotic treatment—which had been risperidone 6 mg oral per day for the past two months. Within one week of adding hormone treatment, she made a dramatic improvement in her mental state and had no auditory hallucinations. The paranoid delusions also resolved within two weeks of adding hormone treatment to her antipsychotic medication. Over a period of months, Miss R was able to find herself better accommodation and some part-time employment. She has remained well—both mentally and physically after 4 years, still taking risperidone plus 50 mcg transdermal estradiol plus the IUD.

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This is some kind of blog…pretty good site.
Tnx minnii

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Thus what is evidently an exception. (I’d still like to talk face-to-face with this woman, though.) Thanks for the article.

That’s a critiscism that has been leveled at the field of medicine as a whole. I think it is being changed now.

Women have a strong anxiety, but they have great will to handle it than men. Salute to them, but don’t be gender bias.