Do you think co-morbids should be treated separately?

Post Reply New Topic

It seems like a lot of people lump all co-morbids into the "autism pile" and try to treat them as the same problem. This really gets on my nerves.

There is no treatment for autism, in my opinion. You can only treat the symptoms that an autistic individual presents. For example, if a person has sensory sensitivity, try to find ways to make the person more comfortable. If the person is depressed, treat the depression. If the person is anxious, treat the anxiety...

I feel this way about every mental health diagnosis. Co-morbid exist within the same individual. Also each diagnosis is usually made up of a cluster of symptoms. Sometimes one treatment can cure multiple symptoms, but often the symptoms of one diagnosis must be addressed individually. It's the same when a person has multiple diagnoses. You treat the whole person, not one diagnosis.

I think it depends upon how related the co-morbid is to autism--

whether to treat the co-morbid separately, or in conjunction with the autism.

One should pursue one's notions in this area on case-by-case basis.

No. I have one brain and the world seems fractured enough without having people divide my brain up. One brain, one mind, one me.

Well, ideally any treatment/therapy for things like autism should be unique to the needs of the individual. So from that aspect, I think if the treatment or whatever helps a person who might not have what we tend to think of when we say autism, then great.

If we are talking in terms of the name or classification of disorders which are often co-morbid with autism such as sensory processing disorder, I think that they should be recognized as part of a whole class of disorders. Like how autoimmune disorders is a "class" of disorders that includes everything from type-1 diabetes, to allergies, to Psoriasis. I think that what is happening is people are starting to realize that things like autism, Aspergers, ADHD, Dyslexia, Dyspraxia, SPD, and NLD are somehow related. I think it will just take some time for people to sort out all the differences and similarities between all of these conditions, and to give them a proper description and classification.

To add to what other people have been saying: No, I don't think it is even really possible to treat co-morbidities separately. I have both ASD and Generalized Anxiety Disorder. The biggest difficulties I have with autism are numerous hypersensitivities. My anxiety and sensory issues play into each other so much that if I am having difficulty with one, I am having difficulty with the other. If I am anxious, my brain naturally becomes hypersensitive to my environment as part of a small fight-or-flight response. So anxiety inevitably causes some degree of sensory overload as my already heightened senses become even more sensitive, so everything bothers me twice as much. Sensory overload can set off anxiety. Often I am unsure which is the underlying problem or trigger.

I agree with this, though I'd put it slightly differently by saying "treat the thing the furthest back in line that you can treat". So for example with myself, I sometimes have hypersomnia which is caused by depression which is caused by autism. The thing furthest back in the line that can be treated is depression, because I don't know of any way to treat autism itself. Treating the hypersomnia without treating the thing that causes it wouldn't be as effective as vice versa, I believe.

They are separate symptoms.

How do you make sandwich? What do you start with? The Bread or the Content?

Sorry, I'm having an aspie moment. Could you explain what the sandwich metaphor means? Thanks!

It is just like "What came first the chicken or the egg?"

Some people will say chicken and others will say egg.

For me personally, if I have a headache I will go get a pain reliever versus trying to find the root cause.

If the headache persist then I will seek to find the root cause.

But even if I find the root cause I still need to treat the headache with pain reliever first.

She saying you have to find the cause of the problems. If someone has anxiety, you have to find out why. Trying to treat it alone may not work because you don't know why they are having it. You can give them pills for it but it won't be enough.

No

I agree that you should find the root cause for stuff, but there's a always a lot of lazy people. Some lazy people will not even look for a root cause, but other lazy people will think that autism is the root cause for everything. I've had a lot of problems with people who try to trace back all of my problems to autism. That has made me reluctant to reveal my diagnosis to new teachers or mental health professionals.

Thanks! It makes sense to me now.




But then we run into the problem of what is the root cause of autism. All the therapies etc, that are used to manage autism are just treating the outward symptoms and not the cause. It seems like no matter where or how we try to trace the cause(s) of something, we sort of just end up in and endless loop of cause and effect (chicken and egg.)

I agree that lumping would not really effectively explain what's going on. I mean, as I said before, the major difficulties I have are autism and Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Although many people on the spectrum have trouble with anxiety and that anxiety disorders are pretty common co-morbids with autism, but the fact remains that my anxiety is a psychiatric disorder while autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder. Although my difficulties from GAD and autism are so intertwined, at the end of the day they are still two distinct disorders.