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Bullet Proof Liver: SSRIs and Suicide
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January 11, 2007Announcement: ADD How To
January 20, 2007
Bulletproof? Wikipedia
The Bulletproof Liver Challenge
Eleven posts since we started this series on SSRIs and suicide on Dec 13, '06 – addressing an article on the FDA, SSRIs and depression. The theme of these remarks: anyone can have problems with SSRIs if these 10 additional challenges go overlooked. This post takes us from an overview about brain and body, to how the brain and body function together in the office. The bulletproof liver can kill.
Sewage Treatment
From theory to practice: Sewage treatment can make a big difference in with drugs of any kind, including SSRIs. If these subtle metabolic issues are not recognized and treated, meds can encourage a rapid, dangerous turn for the worse. Yes, the downturn will, in one sense, be caused by the SSRI. With a bulletproof liver, the patient will feel that nothing works. They can feel very toxic with a small dose. But the bullet proof liver causes the problem, not the specific SSRI. Suicide can become an option.
Just yesterday saw two new women, both sophomores in high school, having suicidal thoughts on SSRIs. Both had tried numerous drugs including mood stabilizers and atypicals, all worked for a while, or made them feel more crazy. Bulletproof liver history. Bowel problems since childhood. Both attractive, didn't get asked the bowel frequency question.
So, just what is a bullet proof liver? Consider these physiologic essentials:
Three Treatment Plants
Your body has three main sewage treatment plants. Yes, some others are important [e.g. skin], but let's get started by paying attention to fundamental somatic symptoms we see literally every day. Often these three systems show deterioration, even in childhood and early adolescence. Every adult evaluation should address these functional impairments.
1. Your bowel is the southern end of a food breakdown and biotransformation process that starts even before the first bite of food with enzyme production and salivation, to begin the energy transfer process. The bowel is one of the main treatment plants for the good energy coming through. If the bowel does not work well, detoxification and biotransformation of energy deteriorates. Much of what we eat here in the US is simply not good for us. [See Ultrametabolism in the sidebar here.] The plant can close down with irritable bowel, constipation, chronic use of antibiotics [even way back in childhood], infections, parasites, under or overgrowth of bad bacteria. If the bowel does not work the brain's activity becomes compromised in its function. If your bowel is sick your brain is sick.
2. Your liver, another sewage treatment plant, stands next in line behind the bowel, and backs up. If the bowel is ineffective, the liver is challenged and overworked as the next downstream detox facility. The liver function becomes sick, can be “constipated” in the Phase 1 and Phase 2 biotransformation pathways. If the bowel is leaking materials, rather than detoxifying, the liver becomes frozen, – broken in it's own function. It becomes bullet proof, meaning our psych drugs [and many other drugs and nutrients] just bounce off. They don't get thru the first gate. The door remains closed. Toxins build up. The brain becomes even sicker. Toxins begin to spread thru brain function and body functions. Fibromyalgia, weakness, ADD, depression, anxiety, sleep disorder all sit in the cesspool. All this in the context of “normal labs.”
Those reportedly “normal labs” are only normal because they only review parts of information, the elephant's tail. Different, more comprehensive labs tell the entire story more accurately, and can direct more specific metabolic interventions.
3. Your kidneys, the last treatment plant in the series, can also leave you unresponsive to psych meds and to SSRIs. We all know that those in dialysis are much more likely to accumulate meds and become toxic for a whole host of reasons.
While kidneys can fail to detox properly, the bowel and liver are the two most important pathways for the multiple steps in the biotransformation of psych meds. With bowel dysfunction, a downstream bulletproof liver, and possibly overloaded kidneys, trials of any meds will simply not go well. Depression and suicide can follow if we don't address these problems at the outset.
The theme continues: Work up the entire person, find the connections, the body floats the brain.
cp
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9 Comments
How does one test (which labs) for complex liver woes, beyond the standard enzymes? Or the degree of bulletproofness, in other words?
Michael,
Great question:
1. Liver testing thru Genetic swab detailed on the second page here: http://corepsych.com/tests
2. Many other contributing factors slow liver metabolism but require measured by secondary means – IgG, Walsh, OATs there on the second page as well. That full workup turns the tide for 90% of the rest.
3. Hair HTMA down that page can prove helpful as toxic metals can also contribute to neurotransmitter challenges that might appear as if the liver is confounding – but the metal is.
Hope this helps!
cp
Hi Dr Parker,
I wanted to thank you for this great website and tell you about my situation. Here in the UK I was diagnosed as having Schizoid / Borderline Personality disorder by my Psych Doc after a 20 minute consultation a number of years ago.
After Reading your book among others I realized I had thinking/avoiding ADHD and Clint Eastwood Guy Depression. Having been placed on a number of Antidepressants – I am now on Effexor XR and Vyvanse 30mg – it has turned my life around – thank you.
Do many with ADHD get diagnosed as personality disordered?
Are there any differences between the brand name drugs and generic?
Finally is having a few glasses of red wine a bad idea if one is taking psych drugs?
Thanks for your time!
James,
When biological etiologies go overlooked the stymied diagnostic position is based upon the following superficial misperceptions:
1. No affective storms = personality disorder – treatment: psychoanalysis/psychodynamic psychotherapy to uncover the past.
2. Affective storms = bipolar disorder – treatment: mood stabilizers and antipsychotics.
3. Affective storms mixed with cognitive lack of control = borderline personality with bipolar – treatment: deep psychodynamic psychotherapy 3x/wk.
Every one of these counterproductive targets and unpredictable outcomes is built upon the shaky foundation of an almost complete absence of appreciation of the neurotransmitters dopamine, norepinephrine, glutamate and PEA as they effect the prefrontal cortex. Psychiatry is built on years of affect focus and denial of the profound importance of cognition and executive function.
Then go over to check out the other variables, deeper but useful, videos here: ADHD Meds & Allergies – Milk and Wheat: http://bit.ly/mawimmun
cp
Dr Does a Bulletproof Liver affect AMP products only or also Methylphenidate and others (Intuiv, Modafinil and Strattera)?
What is the best method to cure a Bullettproof Liver and differentiate between Impossible Pipes and the Bulletproof Liver?
Thomas,
Several ways to address that refractory liver. I’m preparing an easy serious of choices after offending antigens and other maladies are addressed. One can’t fix the liver if it keeps suffering downstream from compromise w antigenic/allergic activity.
After that we like AminoDTox for two weeks, Phase I, then PaleoCleanse after for both Phase I & II- both available at the Store here.
cp
[…] In my office, everyday I distribute this specific Transit Time Protocol to the many folks I evaluate with significant treatment failure and bowel issues. Fully 95% of those who seek a second opinion for treatment failures elsewhere have no idea about Transit Time, bowel frequency, or associated liver challenges arising in that terrible predicament: the Bulletproof Liver. […]
Hey Phlip,
Glad this metabolic review will work for you. So much more coming down the road here on this subject. Each day having such a problem with choosing the next missive – then the time to write.
I am looking forward to reporting on iodine and hormones, and comments on D3. All of these and other issues walk in the door everyday – and I have overlooked them for years. The technology is remarkable. They all can create problems with mood and depression.
Have a person with whom I have consulted in Scottsdale AZ, had three sets of SPECT scans over ~ 4 years, cannot respond consistently to any meds, had a slim crack for a therapeutic window, and has multiple signs of a bulletproof liver.
His additional great workups -from red cell phosphlipids from Hopkins, to pharmacogenetic profile from Mayo Clinic and multiple Metametrix subset have already set up a path for new intervention options. When labs, scans and history come together, it’s an epiphany everyday.
The bulletproof liver is fixable -if first you see it – and does give this guy several new options.
Yet, as I told him, we must always remember, this is medicine and even with all this great info, nothings perfect. And with severity, it takes time to turn around multiple causes.
Thanks,
Chuck
this is amazing. so is your entire series on ssri’s. must get off my butt and link to them.
cheers
philip