No longer defined by their illness more people with schizophrenia look toward recovery

There are many ways to describe Joe of Salt Lake City, Utah-he is 42 years old, a brother, a son, a friend, a student at the University of Utah and a person with schizophrenia.

Joe attributes his improved ability to function to better compliance with his treatment. Now able to manage his symptoms, he is working towards accomplishing goals he and his treatment team have set. He feels he has also reached the point where he no longer defines himself by his illness. In other words, Joe is not a "schizophrenic"-he is a person who lives with schizophrenia.

Joe and other people who are successfully living with schizophrenia exemplify the need for greater understanding about the mental illness that affects 2 million people in America-more than the combined populations of North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming-and yet still remains widely misunderstood by the general public. Schizophrenia Awareness Week (May 21-27) is an ideal time to start this understanding.

As stated by NARSAD, The Mental Health Research Association, "schizophrenia is a severe, chronic and generally disabling brain disease. While the term schizophrenia literally means 'split mind,' it should not be confused with a 'split,' or multiple, personality. It is more accurately described as a psychosis-a type of illness that causes severe mental disturbances that disrupt normal thoughts, speech and behavior. Schizophrenia is believed to be due to a combination of genetic and environmental factors."

The severity of schizophrenia is different in each person, and symptoms may vary over time. These symptoms may include delusions (false beliefs, such as insisting the government is spying on you), hallucinations (such as voices that command you to do something), disorganized thinking or speech (such as speaking without making sense or inventing words), agitation and decreased emotional expression.

A number of very effective medications called antipsychotics have been developed to treat these symptoms of schizophrenia. However, because people with schizophrenia often don't believe they are sick-a condition known as poor insight-they resist taking medications. According to Dr. Robert Conley, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, having an option that takes the daily focus off the need to take medication can help move patients toward recovery. "For example, we are seeing significant success with long-acting injectable medications that allow patients to think less about taking their medication and more about how they define themselves outside their illness and the goals they have for returning to their families, their jobs and their communities," says Conley.

According to NARSAD, with appropriate treatment, symptoms can usually be controlled, and most people with schizophrenia can lead productive and fulfilling lives. Treatment is believed to be most effective when begun early in the course of the illness.

Vitiligo beware of white patches on your skin

Vitiligo (often called as leucoderma) is a disorder where the skin loses its color in patches of irregular shapes and sizes. This is a pigmentation disorder which means that melanocytes (the pigment-producing cells) in the skin get destroyed. This results in the development of white patches on the skin. The hairs which are growing in that area may lose their color and turn grey.

The causes:

The cause for vitiligo is not very clear, but doctors and researchers are beginning to believe that vitiligo resembles an autoimmune disorder. Which means that the pigment (the matter that gives colour to our skin) producing cells of the skin are destroyed by the body’s own antibodies (defense cells).

In some cases, it has been observed that the onset of vitiligo is related to a psychologically stressful event in the patient’s life. People with a family history of vitiligo are more prone to developing these white patches. Ninety-five per cent of all those who develop vitiligo start developing symptoms before the 40th year of their life.

The symptoms:

People with vitiligo develop white patches on their skin of irregular shapes and sizes. Vitiligo is more common on the exposed areas, for example, hands, face, neck and arms. It also occurs on covered areas too like genitals, breast and legs. In some patients, the hair may also turn grey early and in the inside of the mouth, white discoloration may occur.

The spread of vitiligo cannot be determined. It may stop completely after the first patch, but often these patches do spread. For some patients, further development may take years and for others the large areas can be covered in months. In some patients, mental stress has been seen to increase the growth of these white patches.

According to homoeopathic philosophy, vitiligo is not a disease in itself but an expression of an inner disturbed state of the body. Thus, the cure should occur at a level where things have gone wrong. In order to achieve this, the problem is analyzed keeping in view various aspects of mental, physical and familial attributes, and also a complete study is done on the psychological environment of the patient. The prescription is then based at the deepest level of understanding of the patient’s disturbed inner force.

Although many homoeopathic medicines like Arsenic Sulph Falvus, Arsenic Album, Baryta Mur and Baryta Carb are known to give good results in vitiligo, the fact is that the real cure of vitiligo occurs when the prescription is made according to the true principles of homoeopathic philosophy - treating that “deep causative factor” behind this inner disturbance. Also remember that vitiligo is a chronic disorder and can take considerable time, even with the best of the homoeopathic treatment, to be completely cured.