June 29th, 2009 
admin 
It is well known that scientists have confirmed a link between toxoplasmosis and bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. In fact, it has been discovered that many parasitic infections can result in the onset of a mental illness and treatment of infection can improve or even resolve symptoms of mental illness. An infection that directly affects the brain and causes cysts, lesions or cerebral swelling can cause symptoms of psychiatric disease, but parasites that did not directly affect the brain were also found to induce the same types of symptoms.
There are links between many medical ailments and mental illnesses.
“…infections already recognized to induce psychiatric symptoms. These include pneumonia, urinary tract infection, sepsis, malaria, Legionnaire’s disease, syphilis, typhoid, diphtheria, HIV, rheumatic fever and herpes.” “Research done at the John Hopkins Children’s Center and published in the Archives of General Psychiatry in 2001 found that mothers with evidence of Herpes Simplex Type 2 infection at the time of pregnancy had children almost six times more likely to later develop schizophrenia. And in the US, Europe and Japan, birth clusters of individuals who develop schizophrenia later in life closely mirror the seasonal distribution of Ixodes ticks at the time of conception (Lyme disease).”
Considering that so many illnesses are linked to the onset of mental illness and, in some cases, symptoms can be improved or even “cured” by treatment of the underlying physical ailment, shouldn’t a complete physical examination be part of mental health care? At the very least, mental health care providers should ask for a complete medical history and notify patients that symptoms could be caused by an underlying medical condition.
I ask you, if you were diagnosed with a mental illness and were told that your symptoms could potentially be the result of a physical ailment, would you be interested in investigating it further? Why aren’t mental health care providers informing us of these potential links?
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