Reddit reviews Nutritional Lithium: A Cinderella Story: The Untold Tale of a Mineral That Transforms Lives and Heals the Brain

I see people 6-60, but will just focus on the kids. About four months ago I found Nassir Ghaemi and have been running his playbook since then. I do a new assessment of every patient I see using this page as the basis of my initial diagnosis. I literally copy and paste that block of text into a work processor and bold sections that I think will be useful for the patient I am seeing, and we read selections of it together. I typically bold the sections on diagnostic validators, descriptions of mood temperaments, the definitions of mixed depression and melancholia, and then I bold selections from the section that says You Don't Have ADHD.

Dr. Ghaemi says that the first move is to rule out mood disorder. If I can't rule it out, I treat it, with lithium. If the patient is battling depression more than mania and anxiety, I sometimes use lithium orotate, the version of lithium you can order from Amazon and doesn't need lab draws every six months. LiOr isn't as useful for people who have anxiety, seizures, or mania. They need LiCo3, which is more useful for that kind of bipolar disorder.

I would estimate that I can't rule out mood disorder in my patient population 70% of the time, so the first intervention is lithium. Once their lithium is dialled in, the next move is to rule out psychosis. If I can't rule out psychosis, I treat it with an antipsychotic and niacin.

Once psychosis is either treated or ruled out, the next step is Anxiety. Rule out or treat. Most people with anxiety are treated successfully at the Mood Disorder step. I have very few people who need anxiety treatment when their mood is stable. Then again, depression and anxiety share a lot of symptoms.

Then, Personality Disorders. For PD, I use a cranial electric stimulator and lithium. I have remarkable results. I've discussed my results with very experienced practitioners. Some dismiss my results out of hand, and others are intrigued. One of the major benefits of this treatment protocol is that patients don't have to drag their trauma out into the daylight and get retraumatized and sensitized to all that stuff.

After that comes everything else. Trichotillomania, ADHD, anorexia, etc.

Watch Dr. Ghaemi explain his reasoning for this diagnosis and treatment protocol himself. His reasoning resonated with me so I put it into practice, and the results have been amazing. So many people with anxiety and "adhd" really have a mood disorder, I had no idea. Even people who have looked up ADHD on the internet and are totally convinced that this is what they have are turned by his method and start to recognize that it is a mood problem and not a thinking problem.

I love that he cites Kraepelin.

People who see me to have their xanax, adderall, ambien, and klonopin continued sometimes blow up and walk out of my office (that's fine).

I do a lot of patient education.