periscopedepth

"Can your brain become inflamed? Can you have a sore or swollen brain—like a sore throat—that causes everything from brain fog to dementia to depression to autism?

You brain can become inflamed just as your body does. And in the 21st century, our bodies and brains are on fire."

[head-shaking, double-taking sound effect]

SAY WHAT?  What might this mean to someone who sports the moniker, manonfyre; whose icon is a portrait of self-immolating monk, Quang Duc; whose agonized contact with Life can feel like living without skin?

"Today, the fires of inflammation are raging all over the body. That’s why we are seeing an epidemic of diseases including autoimmunity (24 million people), allergy (50 million), and asthma (30 million), as well as cardiovascular disease (60 million), cancer (10 million), and diabetes (14 million). These, it has been recently discovered, are primarily inflammatory conditions.

Now, new research proves that almost all brain problems are connected to or caused by inflammation as well . . .

Is Depression Caused by a Virus?

Well, it may be.

Researchers recently discovered a new virus called Bornavirus, which is found in the limbic system (or emotional center) of the brain in 30 percent of the population. One in 6 of the people who carry this virus have depression.

This virus inflames the brain. It is this inflammation that leads to depression in some cases.

Interestingly, the problem can be cured by treatment with short-term antiviral medication.

Think about what that means.

A virus can cause inflammation, which leads to depression. Treating the virus can CURE, not just reduce, the symptoms of depression.

Even the best antidepressant drugs don’t cure depression.

And NO amount of psychotherapy will ever cure depression caused by a virus.

This is like the discovery that ulcers are caused by bacteria and not stress. It completely upsets our thinking about mental illness and neurological disease.

And it should!

The cure for your broken brain may not lie in searching through the intricacies of your past, but in healing your body. One of the key ways you do that is by reducing inflammation."

dear doctor

Dear [Doctor],

Please indulge me for a few minutes, here.

 

Allow me to ask you to recall any of the situations in your own life when you experienced some serious heartache (breakup, death, etc.); some profound embarrassment or anxiety . . . perhaps even a situation where you felt profoundly threatened and your very life was at risk . . . 

 

Please recall when -- for those intense moments, hours, days, or weeks -- you felt deep sadness, grief, shame, fright . . . 

 

We can surmise that, for you as for most people, the "crisis" of those heart-rending moments, hours, and days passed away; the intensity of those situations waned; and you resumed more "ordinary" states of body and mind.  For you, the "crisis" of those situations came and went; arose and fell away.

 

Please entertain this exercise a little longer. 

 

Imagine, now, what your life would be like if that "crisis" did not immediately or soon go away.  Imagine the whole body-mind syndrome of those intense situations persisting, ceaselessly, for hour after hour, day after day, week after week, month after month, year, after year, after year.   Imagine being "stuck" in that bio-psychological crisis.  What would your life be like if that lump in your throat did not go away; if those tears welling in your eyes did not stop; if your racing heart did not relax; if shame and fright filled your guts day and night? 

 

Do THAT persistently, chronically for weeks and months on end.  Toss in Life's inevitable, added heartaches, insults, embarrassments, injuries, mistakes, risks . . .  Periodically, CRANK this whole syndrome UP, acutely, to a CRUSHING INTENSITY -- FOR NO DISCERNABLE REASON WHATSOEVER!  Sleep this heartache; wake with this heartache; eat your breakfast, lunch, and dinner with this heartache; do this persistent knot of grief, sadness, shame, and fright, all balled together; this chronic agony with acute episodes -- FOR YEARS! 

 

In this imagined scenario, are you getting a little tired and worn out by this?  A little fatigued or bent out of shape by it all?  Figure on being being hospitalized several times, over those years, owing to your utter, complete exhaustion.  Figure on enduring a dozen or more drug trials, over all that time, aimed at abating this ceaseless woe, but to no avail.  And when none of that has helped, then what would you do?  Would you grasp at this therapy (autogenics, neuro-linguistic programming, holotropic breathwork, etc.) or that panacea (fish oil, sam-e, etc.) to find some relief?  Would you undergo electro-convulsive treatments?  Would you wonder, after a decade or more of this, whether or not buprenorphine might help; might "make it stop?"  Would you long for SOMETHING?!, for ANYTHING?!  Would you contemplate suicide?  (They do shoot horses, don't they?)  Would you, more or less, just collaspe and "veg out" in front of your TV, only to wait, and wait some more, for nature's own summary end?  What remedy would you seek, Dr. -------, when no available remedy (namely, antidepressants [including the current medication you are taking -- nudge, nudge, hint, hint], assorted therapies, and ECT) has made any significant, enduring dent in this, your chronic (with acute episodes), unabated state of intense, bio-psychological crisis; this wholely unnecessary suffering; this life without skin? 

 

____________________________________________________________

 

 

Here's a new angle, via Dr. Mark Hyman:

 

http://www.ultrawellness.com/blog/ultramind-solution-cool-inflammation

 

"Can your brain become inflamed? Can you have a sore or swollen brain—like a sore throat—that causes everything from brain fog to dementia to depression to autism?

You brain can become inflamed just as your body does. And in the 21st century, our bodies and brains are on fire. [<< notable analogy to someone, like myself, whose email moniker is manonfyre ~ R.L.]

Today, the fires of inflammation are raging all over the body. That’s why we are seeing an epidemic of diseases including autoimmunity (24 million people), allergy (50 million), and asthma (30 million), as well as cardiovascular disease (60 million), cancer (10 million), and diabetes (14 million). These, it has been recently discovered, are primarily inflammatory conditions.

Now, new research proves that almost all brain problems are connected to or caused by inflammation as well.

Is Depression Caused by a Virus?

Well, it may be.

Researchers recently discovered a new virus called Bornavirus, which is found in the limbic system (or emotional center) of the brain in 30 percent of the population. One in 6 of the people who carry this virus have depression.

This virus inflames the brain. It is this inflammation that leads to depression in some cases.

Interestingly, the problem can be cured by treatment with short-term antiviral medication.

Think about what that means.

A virus can cause inflammation, which leads to depression. Treating the virus can CURE, not just reduce, the symptoms of depression.

Even the best antidepressant drugs don’t cure depression.

And NO amount of psychotherapy will ever cure depression caused by a virus."

 

See too: 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bornaviridae, http://www.psycom.net/depression.central.borna.html

or google borna virus.

 

What do you make of this?

 

Thank you.

 

[rhobherto/manonfyre]

 

 

p.s.  Of course, there is and always has been the "spiritual" angle -- what Lord Gautama taught: "Life is suffering; desire is the cause of suffering; suffering can end; the Way to that end is the Noble Eight-Fold Path."  Similarly, this ceaseless heart-break is none other than the "Dark Night of the Soul (~ Saint John of the Cross)."  "God forgets God so that God may seek God.," as Muktananda said.  And this heartache is merely the agony of that seeking; the agony of my illusory sense of seperation from "the Beloved (~ Rumi)."  Only "Awakening" to what the Tibetan Dzogchen tradition describes as "the Innate Great Perfection" will avail; only the "Realization" of Advaita Vedanta or Khasmir Shaivism, only tasting "One Taste" (see "smartest-man-on-the-planet" Ken Wilber's work), and NO PILL or therapy, will do.  Notions that may or may not interest you.