Help from the Medics on the Board

nvts

Active Member
Just had a "hmmmm" moment. difficult child 1 had to stay in the hospital when he was born because of an electrolyte imbalance. They had (as did we when he was first home - about 6 mos.) to give him calcium orally. What I'm curious about is have any of you heard of mental health being affected by this type of imbalance?

difficult child 1 is in jeopardy of ending up in a long term psychiatric hospital. with me potentially losing custody of him to the state. There's a meeting on Tues. during which the CR Director is afraid that his mental health providers may try and threaten me with medical neglect. She wants to have my buy-in as a counter-measure of admitting him into a 2 mos. program for a medication-wash and re-evaluation if they threaten the neglect.

I'm curious to see if they may have missed something with the past imbalance.

The warrior mom is gearing up for a biggee and I want to go in sounding intelligent!

Thanks to all of you!

Beth
 

tiredmommy

Well-Known Member
I don't know about the imbalance causing his mentall health issues, but I think early childhood hospitalizations have been linked to attachment problems.
 

gcvmom

Here we go again!
Very low blood calcium CAN impact brain functioning:

Symptoms

The calcium level in blood can be moderately low without causing any symptoms. Over time, hypocalcemia can affect the brain and cause neurologic or psychologic symptoms, such as confusion, memory loss, delirium, depression, and hallucinations. These symptoms disappear if the calcium level is restored.

Here's the Merck site I took this from:

http://www.merckmanuals.com/home/sec12/ch155/ch155b.html


In the weeks leading up to his death, my father suffered from a variety of mineral imbalances, and calcium was one of them. He became very confused and disoriented and his memory became very bad. I would expect someone who already has mental health issues would be even more psychiatrically fragile if such a metabolic imbalance occurred.
 

susiestar

Roll With It
There have been times when my calcium levels have gotten really low that I became very confused and easily upset/overwhelmed. NO WAY can they say you have medically neglected him, in my opinion!! I would hope that any doctor would check this kind of thing during a medication wash or any medical crisis, but so often they think that psychiatric symptoms are caused only by psychiatric problems and medical symptoms can only cause medical problems. heck, when I had the cellulitis it impaired every facet of functioning - I literally did not fully understand what was going on because I was so terribly sick. They told me that if I had waited another day to go to the doctor I could have lost my leg or gotten sepsis and if I had waited 2-3 more days I could have been so sick they couldn't have cured it at all. It was that far gone. As it is I still have probls with the muscles in that leg though there are not visible signs of damage.

I can see the 2 mo inpatient medication wash/evaluation, but NOT medical neglect. I just cannot see you going against advice of doctors if your child needed it and it was humanly possible. Not agreeing with docs, esp psychiatrist and tdocs, is NOT medical neglect as they are NOT practicing an exact science and I doubt what they want to do would have the results they want. Blaming you is easier than treating him and this happens to a lot of families with tough to treat kids. Heck, it was threatened with us by Wiz' school in 2nd grade when they would NOT challenge him and he kept acting out. Then again because he kept missing school to see the psychiatrist and therapist who had NO after school appts. I had to get the Children's hospital people involved because school watned to take custody of him (same people behind that as drove my seven yr old to try to commit suicide - TWICE!)

We will be with you during the meeting!!
 

DammitJanet

Well-Known Member
Let me get this straight so I understand the theory.

Are they saying that because he had low calcium levels from birth through 6 months - something that he was born with - and that you had treated by his pediatrician, that you medically neglected him because it has possibly been a factor in his current mental health crisis?

Well, if that is the case, then they should also go after the farmers that fed the cattle feed laced with hormones, grocery stores that sell products with preservatives, fast food restaurants, Big Pharma, the oil industry, the electric company because who knows what living near power lines can do to us, microwave oven makers...you get my drift. There is no clear cut evidence to say why anyone has a mental illness. If there was, we would stop it. We could certainly vaccinate against it.

Thats insane.
 

Steely

Active Member
Let me get this straight so I understand the theory.

Are they saying that because he had low calcium levels from birth through 6 months - something that he was born with - and that you had treated by his pediatrician, that you medically neglected him because it has possibly been a factor in his current mental health crisis?
Yea, I am confused too - if what Janet was saying is what they are after - that is more than insane!!!! Any mineral imbalance can make one have physical and psychological issues.....but how would you have medically neglected him?
 
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