#48 Omega-3 Fatty Acids: Are They Good For Mental Health, Too?

Continuing with complementary medicine for depression, I'm moving on to omega-3 fatty acids. I'll give you the full run down of fatty acids and where omega-3s fit in, what differentiates all the types of fatty acids, why omega-3s are so good for you, what foods you will find them in, the three different kinds and how they are different, and most importantly, what they can do for mental health. I'll briefly cover a few journal articles that point to evidence for omega-3s benefit for mental health, and I'll make my final recommendation and verdict on omega-3s for use in mental health, so you'll definitely want to hear about this because I'm sure most of your patients are taking it, have taken it, or are thinking about it. You will want to know how to advise them on the best way to do so, and what they can expect!

#47 Zinc: The Second Most Important Mineral for Mental Health?

On today's show I will continue the discussion on minerals with zinc. Like magnesium, zinc is also critical for cell functioning and neurons are certainly no exception. I'll talk about what zinc does, how you can be deficient,  what foods contain it, what research there is to support the use of zinc in mental health, and I'll discuss how to supplement. This is another mineral to pay attention to and is the second of two that I am discussing, so I'm sure you will enjoy.

#46 Magnesium: The Most Important Mineral for Mental Health?

On today's show I will be talking about minerals and specifically magnesium. Magnesium is critical for cell functioning and neurons are certainly no exception. I'll talk about what magnesium does, how you can be deficient, how it's very difficult to measure neuronal levels, what foods contain it, what research there is to support the use of magnesium in depression, and I'll try to help sort out all those crazy different types of magnesium you see online and at the store. This is definitely a mineral to pay attention to and is just one of two that I'll be discussing, so I'm sure you will enjoy.

#45 Vitamin D: Does Supplementation Help With Mental Health?

On the show today I will be wrapping up the vitamins with vitamin D. This is a vitamin that I see ordered all the time, and I see it ordered a lot by  mental health. Well, I can't say that I've ever seen correcting it to make a difference in mental health, but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't correct it. We take care of the whole person. Listen in to hear all about vitamin D, the details on evidence or lack thereof  for  mental health, and what it should actually be used for.

#44 L-Methylfolate (Deplin) and SAMe for the Treatment of Depression

I introduced you to vitamins on the last episode and specifically concentrated on the B vitamins and more specifically, B12 and folate (B9). I touched on L-Methylfolate as the best way to supplement folate and that even if you are not deficient in folate that it may not be getting into your brain. If that's the case, then the patient may need L-Methylfolate. I will go into detail on it today. I will also cover SAMe which is related as it is a chemical in the methylation cycle that the folate cycle is connected to. Let's learn about these two supplements for depression that have pretty good evidence for benefit in patients!

#43 B Vitamins and Why They Are Important for Mental Health

Today we continue our journey through complementary medicine and its impact on depression. Last time I talked about herbal treatments, and today I will start off a short series on vitamins and minerals. On today's episode I'll briefly talk about vitamins in general and then I'll focus on the B vitamins most important for mental health, B12 and folate. I'll talk about why they are so important, how one could become deficient in them, how to check for that, and what to do about it. Many of your patients are probably taking vitamins and thinking they are helping them, so I think it's critical we know as much about them as possible so that we can counsel patients and actual prescribe them when they are actually needed!

Quick Take #1: Suzetrigine (Journavx)

Today I'm putting out a special episode that I'm calling a Quick Take where I'm featuring new information that comes out that is not with the topic that I am currently covering. This episode is about a first in class new non-opioid pain medication called suzetrigine. This is an interesting medication and may have potential to replace opioids. On this episode I'll talk about what's known about this medication and what you need to prescribe it. I'll also touch on the idea of using new medications and the cost associated with doing so. This is a little different than what I've been talking about so I hope you enjoy!

#42 Complementary Antidepressants Part 1: Herbal Antidepressant Treatments: St. John's Wort, Rholiola Rosea, and Kanna

Today I'll be starting off my series on complementary depression treatments with herbal treatments. St. John's Wort and Rhodiola Rosea are probably the most well known and most likely to be helpful so I'll be covering the available research on those and give my opinion on their effectiveness. I'll also be talking about Kanna which is a new one that I've recently heard of and tried myself! It has some intriguing mechanisms of action that I'll discuss as well. A lot of your patients may be taking these or may be more interested in taking one of these instead of a pharmaceutical so I think it's important to know about them so you can give the most well informed opinion on them.

#32 Medication Treatment Course: UPDATE on Discontinuation

I touched briefly on discontinuation on this episode, but I found some cool information from RELEASE from the University of Queensland in Australia that have some awesome resources for discontinuing medication. I'll go into more detail on differentiating withdrawal from relapse, when to discontinue, reasons to discontinue, and more details on how to taper. 

#41 Hypogonadis vs Depression

We just had several episodes regarding antidepressant use that are unique to females, so today I will have one that will be unique to males. In this episode I will compare and contrast depression with hypogonadism. You will learn how to differentiate these two disorders which have extremely similar symptoms. I will also teach you how to work someone up appropriately for hypogonadism so that you can rule it out if you are suspicious. It would be silly to send someone to another practitioner to do the work up and then put your evaluation on hold for depression in the meantime, and treating someone with hypogonadism with antidepressants could actually make things worse! So let's learn how to differentiate the two diagnoses, do the work-up, and if you are bold, I will teach you how to treat and monitor hypogonadism as well. Low T has become so popular in society, so why not learn more about it?

#40 Breastfeeding and Antidepressant Safety

Today we have the third and final episode on reproductive psychiatry where I will be discussing relative safety of antidepressants as well as some other psychiatric medications with breastfeeding. I will also go over the relatively new L1-L5 rating system. This is the final episode on reproductive psychiatry for antidepressants, however I will have an installment when I go over each other category of medication in subsequent seasons. I hope you enjoy! 

 

UPDATE!: I actually found out a lot of the L1-L5 ratings have changed. Some of the changes are big, most not. Also, there are a lot of meds that have been given a rating that I previously did not know, so I have added a bonus episode to this one as a separate episode.

#39 Peri-partum Depression

Today we have episode 2 of our reproductive psychiatry series, and I will be talking about peri-partum psychiatric symptoms with a focus on depression. I will discuss all the factors surrounding treating these patients to include the use of medications. I will talk about the relative safety of the different antidepressants during pregnancy and give you my top choices for the safest ones. I will also talk about post-partum depression and two of the newest psychiatric medications which have recently been approved for this condition, Brexanolone (Zulresso) and Zuranolone (Zurzuvae).This is such a critical time in the life of mothers and growing fetuses. It is so important to treat psychiatric symptoms as it can have an impact for the rest of the child's life, so we want to make sure to treat and not treat at the right time and with the right medications. So please have a listen!

#38 Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD) and Peri-menopausal Psychiatric Symptom Treatments

Today I'm going to be talking about something that I've wanted to talk about for a while. Even though I'm a male, I am very interested in reproductive psychiatry. I like to learn about new things and new medications. I want to find out-of-the-box treatments that have scientific backing to treat my patients because guess what, SSRIs don't fix everything! Also, I absolutely hate referring patients to other specialists to receive treatments that I am perfectly capable of handling myself. So, today we will be learning about depressive symptoms centered around the menstrual cycle. We will be learning about birth control pills, estrogen, progestin, testosterone, tamoxifen, bazedoxifen/estrogen (Duavee), and fezolinetant (Veozah) to help with those suffering from PMDD and peri-menopausal symptoms. And the good news is that these treatments are really effective! More so than much of what we have already discussed, and there's nothing I enjoy more than treating someone and them getting a lot better quickly, so tune in to find out more!

#37 Pediatric and Geriatric Psychiatric Drug Management

It's time to talk about the differences in using the medications that we have discussed for depression in kids and seniors. I don't have a subspecialty board certification in these fields but I do know a thing or two about how prescribing to these populations differs from prescribing to adults. My guess is that even if you don't see kids that you probably see a number of seniors. There are different factors to consider when prescribing to these populations, so tune in to find out more!