Loading ...Posts Tagged ‘bipolar disorder’
An Astonishing Recovery from Bipolar Disorder
Have pig farmers done for sufferers of bipolar disorder what the most brilliant medical minds have thus far failed to accomplish? If you ask 36-year-old Autumn Stringham from Alberta, Canada, you’ll probably get a resounding yes. Mental illness runs in Autumn’s family. Her mother had bipolar disorder for years and committed suicide at age 40. Her grandfather took his life years earlier with the same illness.
Married at 18, Autumn was soon pregnant with her first child and in a deep depression. She emerged, only to turn manic, paranoid, and obsessed with the urge to stab herself in the belly. She gave birth to a healthy son, but by age 20, she too was hospitalized with bipolar disorder and began taking a five-drug cocktail of anti-depressants, anti-psychotics, and anti-anxiety medications. Still, she was barely functioning and taking care of her child.
As Autumn continued her struggle with bipolar disorder, her 15-year-old brother Joseph began spiraling out of control with bipolar-related episodes of violence, anger, and aggression. Autumn’s father, Anthony Stephan, terrified he’d lose two of his children the same way he lost his wife, began to look for help outside of traditional medications. That’s when he met David Hardy, a former biology teacher and livestock feed salesman.
When Stephan described the family’s history of mental illness and his son’s violent tendencies, Hardy made a connection. It sounded a lot like a condition seen in pigs that become hyper-irritable, hyper-active and aggressive to the point of killing each another. The farmers “cure” the disorder known as ear-and-tail-biting-syndrome by adding a vitamin and mineral formula to the animals’ feed.1
Could the same thing possibly help his children?
