On Assignment: A Special Series from Dateline NBC

[CaughtOnTape]

Has anyone been watching this series?  It's pretty good.

The latest show discussing the Bay Bridge debacle was jaw dropping.  And that politician "We were supposed to get the bridge completed before another earthquake and that's what we did."....I almost jumped through the TV at him.  This is the kind of mentality our politicians have nowadays.  What a moron.

[biakbiak]

Oddly enough I gave up trying to dvr this show because I live in SF and  it's been preempted for Giants games for several weeks so I forgot about it. Will have to try and find the bay bridge episode.

Edited June 3, 2016 by biakbiak

[biakbiak]

I think there is a conspiracy afoot! The Bay Bridge episode isn't on demand but was supposed to replay on MSNBC so I set my dvr and it was preempted for a replay of Muhammad Ali's Heroes and Legends!

[NextIteration]

No remarks about last night's episode.

I came looking here because of the story about Seroquel.  I was all ready to be pissed off about how it might be portrayed trying in advance to find out about the father who lost his son and expecting a deep dive into "your kid's shouldn't be medicated at all and that big pharma was the epitome of evil, off label being the biggest example".

There are little things in life more difficult than having a child that suffers from severe mental illness, and trying to get the right diagnosis is really hard. I have a child that took Seroquel at the age of 10 for two years starting 11 years ago.  She had had a psychotic episode and was hospitalized in a young child psychiatric ward.  I'm so lucky that my community has such a thing, they are rare.  I can't express how hard it was to take her to the ER, have her transferred and watch her descend into a crazy rage being dragged off with her blanket and most important stuffed animal to what I assumed but never asked was the young child version of a padded room.

Seroquel is one medication in a few (first and foremost she needed a mood stabilizer which are also anticonvulsants), that was part of giving me my child back.  The child that I knew was inside, and had witnessed and enjoyed in a diminishing manner over the previous year.  The very first thing that I was warned about, was the side effect that was front and center in this episode.  We had high dose Benadryl prescribed as the stop gap antidote to give on the way to the ER if she showed any symptoms of it.

In conclusion two things, I know how blessed I am to be in a community though strapped like most of child psychiatric care, is a shining beacon of what can be.  I was also an exceedingly careful parent that took the time and researched everything even though we had an amazing psychiatrist.  I feel terrible for this father and family, but I really struggle to understand how a man that works in the pharma industry sort of failed, where little old me didn't.

I came away from the piece thinking that it was a really fair and a good piece of journalism.  I completely agree that they shouldn't be marketing things off-label, most professionals that are top-notch already know what might be needed.  Medicating kids with severe mental illness (or adults for that matter) is a crapshoot.  I can't wait for the day that we emerge from the dark ages of understanding the brain for real.

Edited June 21, 2016 by NextIteration

[Ohmo]

Quote

No remarks about last night's episode.

I did not see this episode, but one of my family members took Seroquel. for a very short period of time.  She is an adult with mental illness.  Her experiences with the drug were not positive.  She had to be taken off of it because it was causing her to have suicidal thoughts.

[Happy Belly]

I'm still trying to figure out what Letterman is doing with his looks.  He looks like a 90 year old man nowHe says he hates shaving, so do I, but can you imagine what my armpits would look like if I didn't shave? Dave, you are a multi-gabillionaire. Hire a barber to come in 3 days a week for grooming purposes!

[NextIteration]

18 hours ago, Ohmo said:

I did not see this episode, but one of my family members took Seroquel. for a very short period of time.  She is an adult with mental illness.  Her experiences with the drug were not positive.  She had to be taken off of it because it was causing her to have suicidal thoughts.

As I said it's a crapshoot.  A piece could have been done about all the awful side effects of Zyprexa or Risperdal off the top of my head.  Two other medications in the atypical anti-psychotic category that are also used off label for things like aggression in kids that can contribute to massive weight gain (which further complicates issues of self esteem) and Risperdal has the added bonus of giving young boys breast tissue on occasion.

This entire category of medication is terrible with Alzheimer's and dementia patients because of your sister's experience.  I hope your sister is well now.

[SunnyBeBe]

I hope I'm at the right place to post this.  It's certainly not Crime and Punishment, but, it was on a Dateline repeat this weekend.  It was the most amazing story that I have ever seen.  I mean really.  It's about a couple from Oregon who have FIVE children, ALL of whom suffer with a serious and debilitating heart disease.  It has already required 4 heart transplants for 3 of the kids and will likely require it for all 5 children.  It's really unreal what that family has endured.  I have so many questions and would LOVE to get other's feedback on the story.  Here's a link about it.  

https://www.nbcnews.com/dateline/video/full-episode-where-the-heart-is-605384259650

 

The parents nor any other family members have this heart condition, so, they can't figure out how they got it.  

[cooksdelight]

Somewhere in their respective family trees, someone had this disease. I’ve got an aunt and uncle who both died of a very rare form of leukemia, no one else in their generation has had it. Yet. But we remembered one of their great aunts who died of a mystery disease.... and back in the late 1800s they wouldn’t have been able to diagnose it, I think. Sometimes it’s not the parents, but previous generations that pass along the defective gene.

[spiderpig]

I wondered as well where to post about this episode.  What on earth???

It's amazing that this family has held together during this ordeal.  And I'm obsessing over having the carpet replaced...