Suicide Prevention

adminDepression, General, Major Depression, Mental Health, Self Care Leave a Comment

10 USEFUL* things you can do for suicide prevention *Spoiler: none of these things are about “fixing” a suicidal person. I’d like to apologize for missing the actual National Suicide Prevention Day, which was September 10, but, really, any day is a good day to talk about suicide prevention.  Suicide prevention is not a matter of telling your distressed friend …

Ketogenic Diet

adminBest Practices, General, Mental Health, Physical Conditions and Health, Self Care Leave a Comment

Diets and Moods Evidence for the importance of diet for mental health is slowly gathering.  People are looking into the importance of specific diets like the Mediterranean diet, which we have highlighted here before.  And the next big area of research into diet and mental health looks like being the ketogenic diet. Many people have heard of the Atkins diet, …

Get Labs Drawn at Your Home or Office

adminAbout GPS, Costs of Treatment, General, Self Care Leave a Comment

Mobile Phlebotomy ServiceSprinter Healthhttps://www.sprinterhealth.com/ Where They Draw Serving the entire Bay Area, and growing throughout California and parts of the US.During the booking process, you can see if they serve your location. Timing They will come to your home or office as early as 7 AM, with one-hour windowsThey have scheduling as convenient as next-day What They Draw LabCorp and …

Covid-19 Mental Health Effects

adminGeneral, Mental Health, Physical Conditions and Health Leave a Comment

Neurological and psychiatric symptoms are common in COVID-19 infections A recent meta-analysis looked at 215 studies from 30 countries and found that neurological and psychiatric symptoms such as depression and anxiety are common in patients, and are found as much or more in mild cases as in acute cases requiring hospitalization. Loss of sense of smell and taste, weakness, fatigue …

Mental Health Awareness 2021

adminGeneral, GPS, Mental Health, PTSD, Self Care Leave a Comment

For now over 70 years, Americans have delegated the month of May as “Mental Health Awareness Month” (since 1949). And with medical experts and researchers across the planet sharing their observation that the Covid-19 pandemic is going to continue to have an array of mental health impacts into the foreseeable future, mental health awareness needs to remain in the forefront …

Fasting Mimicking Diet

adminGeneral, GPS, Self Care Leave a Comment

What is the Fasting Mimicking Diet? We have just begun trying out the ProLon Fasting Mimicking Diet, developed by an expert at the University of Southern California.  It’s a new concept in dieting relying on the science behind intermittent fasting, which is a method of dieting by fasting for some hours or days each month.  The Fasting Mimicking Diet, however …

Valbenazine for Tardive Dyskinesia

Peter ForsterGeneral

The FDA just approved a new drug, valbenazine, for tardive dyskinesia. Until now there have been few treatment options (vitamin E is sometimes helpful) and the most common choice patients and doctors had to make was to reduce the dose of the atypical antipsychotic that caused the tardive dyskinesia, or switch to another medication, possibly leading to worsened psychiatric symptoms. …

Mental Health and Violence Conference

Peter ForsterGeneral, Policy

I am very pleased to share an announcement for a conference for mental health professionals and psychiatrists sponsored by the Northern California Psychiatric Society . The topic is both an important one and one about which there is much confusion and strong conflicting opinions. I’m proud that our local district branch is not walking away from it but has arranged …

When is my appointment?

Peter ForsterAbout GPS, General, GPS Update

A fair number of emails we get have to do with an urgent request to be reminded when someone’s appointment is to take place. Sometimes the email gets sent only a few minutes before the start of the appointment. Since we don’t interrupt sessions to answer emails, and often don’t have time to answer emails between sessions, this can be an exercise …