Immune Deficiency and Mental Illness

[liverbird]

has anyone heard of any link or experienced any links between Immune Deficiency and Mental Illness such as schizophrenia and bi-polar disorder?

I have CVID and my mom suffers from psychosis which hit her at the very late/abnormal age of 59. My mom has always had strange infections, stomach problems just like me, and constant battles with allergy and sinus problems. She even had two sinus surgeries which did no help. My doctor said there has been new research that shows IVIG helps for alzheimers and even mental illness. So I'm starting to wonder if my mom also may have CVID and some infection is now causing the chemical imbalance in the brain where her psychosis stems from.

[s162216]

Hi,

Unfortunately the doctor needs to read up on the second part of that trial that compared Alzheimers patients treated with IVIG to those not, no statistically significant difference was found between the two groups, and looking at the original trial that indicated there may be a difference, in my opinion it was somewhat guilty of selective data reporting and poor design.

Based on some papers which I have read, mental illness amongst the antibody deficient population tends to be of very similar levels to that of normal people (even though physical health 'scores' are usually significantly lower), but other papers suggest that depression and anxiety are slightly more common (but then again these are likely not caused by the immunodeficiency itself and are the because the person is 'fed up' with having frequent infections etc].

I would think that an infection was unlikely to be the cause of your mums mental health symptoms, but it couldn't hurt to get her checked for antibody deficiency in relation to the other symptoms. CVID doesn't usually run in families (although it has recently been reported that certain very rare variants of it are more commonly), but it might be something to get checked out.

Sam

[elained]

With CVID, there is a 25% chance of also having AUTOIMMUNE conditions.

The three MAIN co-conditions of all autoimmune conditions are: Profound fatigue, pain, and depression. There are a host of other co-conditions, ranging from hair loss, to temperature deregulation to Itching, and about 15 others.

Inflammation CAUSES all of the co-conditions. Depression is caused by inflammation. I have seen first hand what happens when I go into a phase of inflammation.

When I experience inflammation (called a 'flare' in autoimmune 'speak') I become profoundly fatigued (cannot keep my eyes open), have overall high levels of pain, and depression sets in like a dark cloud.

When the inflammation lifts, sometimes two days later, so do the co-conditions.

For the past two months, my Hizentra set off increasingly severe and long periods of inflammation. It is a REVELATION to see depression come and go so definitely related to the flare of inflammation.

There is NO DOUBT in my mind that any increased recording of depression for those with CVID is mostly likely inflammation related.

AND inflammation is a hallmark of infection! So infection also causes profound fatigue, pain and depression. With CVID all patients have infections, sometimes very severe, long lasting and frequent.

In addition, I am also convinced that other biochemical reactions in the brain, caused by inflammation, could easily be triggered or magnified.

Fortunately for me, I can easily tolerate Cymbalta, a prescription medication on label for BOTH Pain and Depression. The SSRI Anti-depressants have always relieved pain for me, and Cymbalta is the best.

Given that I will cycle into increased pain and depression from time to time, Cymbalta is wonderful for me. My only relief for the profound fatigue is caffeine, although I know several with autoimmune conditions who take prescription Adderall or Ritalin.

Liverbird, your mother, no doubt, had many causes of her illnesses. For those born before the developments in medical science that are helping me, the struggle is almost impossible to imagine.

Hugs, Elaine

[liverbird]

Elaine, I'm glad the Cymbalta works for you. And I'm glad that you have so much insight and awareness into all this and will actually accept medication. Which is the complete opposite of my mother.

Great points about the autoimmune conditions. Here is an autoimmune disease that can cause the same episodes my mother has:
www.uphs.upenn.edu/news/News_Releases/2013/07/dalmau/

Here is another article I stumbled across yesterday:
www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=immune-treatment-finds-new-use-mental-health
Although I don't see specific data as Sam was mentioning. I'll keep my research going.

Sam,
If you have any links to the papers you've read (if they are online of course), I would appreciate if you could share!

[s162216]

Hi,

The Alzeimers trial results have not been published yet in a peer reviewed journal, but Baxter have released the findings through a presentation at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference a few months ago, you can find the data here: www.baxter.com/downloads/press_room/press_releases/documents/aaic_gap_press_confer_slides.pdf
That article you've linked above was unfortunately referring to the initial trial, before the recent stage III trial was finished (and of when course Baxter were really promoting the original trials 'positive results' even though it only used a few patients etc as that would be a great cash generator for them if suddenly IVIG was to become a potential treatment)

The conclusions drawn are basically that there didn't seem to be any statistically significant overall improvement in both the mild and moderate Alzheimers patients although some of the cognition test components did show significant improvements there was no overall improvement. There were some different improvements in different subgroups by what alleles they expressed etc ,and the plasma amyloid beta 42 was significantly decreased in a dose dependent fashion, but not the amyloid beta 40 content. Rough analysis of plaque formation did not show a signficant reduction though. Although some results show perhaps potential for some future research they concluded that at the studied standard doses there was no significant efficacy.

The mental health study that I mentioned is available free on PubMed Central, there was another one that I read but I logged in through my university to view it so I can't link that.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3343431/

If you are concerned about your mum then I would urge you to get her checked out before making any assumptions about what the problem might be.

Sam