An alternative to Zyprexa.

Hi Darren, I've been looking after my mother since she was hospitalized with diabetic ketoacidosis and had a cardiac arrest while in the hospital when the took her off this medication cold turkey. She had a long history of thyroid disease that was never properly treated (thyroid disease rarely is), and a history of mental illness, childhood trauma.

She was very disabled following the event, which meant I controlled her food and everything else. When she left the hospital, they put her on a bipolar drug instead of the zyprexa.

Initially, we had a ton of problems, she had arythmia and other congestive heart conditions that were still dealing with, along with chronic kidney and bladder infections. Thus is pretty much typical for geriatric health. All of this landed her in hospice, at which point, I weaned her off all the heart and psyche meds. Instead of getting worse, she got better.

I found alternatives for all her conditions and the results were amazing!

Here's what I did: strict gluten free paleo diet until her blood sugar stabilized. The diet was accompanied by vitamin, mineral and herbal supplements to stabilize her system and restore her nutrients. I also took her regularly to amazing practitioners of acupuncture and chiropractic. I threw in some foot massages at a local spa.

I treated her thyroid disease with natural glandular medications and amino acids, used herbs and supplements to stabilize her blood sugar, stabilized and healed her overall system with acupuncture and chiropractic and exercise. After a year and a half, she was well enough to go to an adult day center, where they were very kind and focused on memory and other skills. This helped her enormously, as in addition to helping her relearn and remember, she had a very positive social environment.

As she's quite elderly, she continues to have health problems, dementia, and occasional signs of psychosis. I find the psychosis to be related to her thyroid levels. I also found that the diet, supplements, acupuncture and chiropractic are necessary on an ongoing basis. Lastly, I found dental hygiene, constipation prevention, gut and kidney health, and exercise to all be very important in maintaining body and mind. I should also say the dementia is related to kidney and dental health by my observations.

The thing that's been remarkable in all this, us that the love and care she received along with dealing with core issues resulted in an amazing mental health improvement. I NEVER expected my mother would ever be free of her mental illness, much less her hurtful personality traits. But she takes no psyche drugs and only has occasional indications of relapse.

Have you thought about a life without medication.

I would take the drug but watch sugar intake. I do this and it has worked out find for me, i have no diabetes and it is generational in my family. I also take the drug and i feel great it helps sleep and overthinking. I would say we should make sure we take lower dosages though.