I’ve been mulling over Cindy Bodie’s blog on Mental Illness in Children. (She posted it a long time ago…see how long I’ve been mulling!) Cindy is a relatively new blogger to adoptionblogs.com and I love so much of what she has to say. She faces life head-on with her large family of older children, many with some very challenging issues. There is much I admire about that. Her level of energy, stamina, commitment and ability to give those kids what they need (to name a few).

But her post jarred me a bit when she stated the bottom line was that mental illnesses aren’t “curable”. Psychiatry/neurology, in many ways, is medicine’s “final frontier” and each year since the discovery that our brains have “plasticity” (i.e., the ability throughout our lives to grow, change and heal) the discoveries of how to heal various brain disorders increases.

Maybe I’ve been holding out eight years of “false hope”, but from where I sit, there are several mental illnesses that indeed are greatly improved (whatever your definition is of cured?) by certain interventions.

I see those interventions as broadly lumped into two categories: 1. neurodevelopmental and 2. biochemical. Scientists researching in these areas are often concluding that mental illnesses are a combination of genetic predisposition and environmental factors. Autism, ADHD, Alzheimer’s, and Bi-polar Disorder have all been shown to have components of both.

Our own experience with Tourettes Syndrome and OCD and their relationship to strep bacteria is another example.

In the area of neurodevelopmental, there are numerous interventions designed to utilize the idea of brain plasticity to “train” your brain to function in a more normal way. It’s like using exercise to make your body healthier. One example is the great strides that many children with ADHD have with neurofeedback treatments. Another would be sensory integration therapies that not only make it easier for the child to tolerate sensory overload or modulate their behaviors, but on brain scans actually show changes in those areas of the brain.

Altering the brain’s chemistry through supplements and other means is another avenue that many professionals and parents explore. To fully understand the theory of these interventions (which have roots in helping to cure autism), you have to understand the synergistic relationship between your body’s immune system, GI system and brain chemistry. It is complicated at best – having an advanced degree in biochemistry would help a great deal. Sadly…I do not.

But I do know the following…there have been some supplements that have produced immediate improvements for LuLu – the magnesium cream comes to mind. There have been others that have produced a more gradual change. Still others that didn’t help one bit and others we’re still assessing. Just this week I realized that she no longer has white spots on her fingernails (a sign of zinc deficiency).

I truly believe that medicine will discover the physiological “causes” of mental illnesses in my lifetime. They will tease out the delicate balance between genetics and environment, between psychological input, nutritional input, exposure to toxins and sensory input. And these findings will continue to open avenues for those who suffer from mental illnesses. Will these avenues “cure” mental illness…I continue to believe they will.

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