Whilst this blog is reflection on two peoples experiences, as important is the knowing that there are practitioners who will and do work outside of the pale, outside of their mainstream discipline, which offers hope and choice for people in distress. Dr Edmond O’Flaherty (now retired) was one such practitioner, a GP who championed a different way of understanding and responding to mental distress.
Nutrient therapy and mental distress
When you look for support around mental distress although in policy there are options and choices, unfortunately there may not be choices outside of medication and/or a referral to talk therapy.
Two of the Mad In Ireland team Martha Griffin and Owen O’Tuama recently when in discussion, realised that they both had the privilege to have stumbled across Dr Edmond O’Flaherty, a General Practitioner with a passion for study, particularly in the area of nutrient therapy and mental distress. The first part of the blog is Owen’s experience followed by Martha’s.
It was the early days of the Irish Advocacy Network, around 2003 and I was taking the course in Peer Advocacy in Dublin. Another Survivor-User of Psychiatry – Orla informed me about a General Practitioner in Stillorgan, Dublin who specialised in Vitamin Therapy for mental health. She also gave me his number.
I called Dr O’Flaherty and arranged an appointment. I always got the impression from him that he was a kind man. I did bloods at the nearby St Vincent’s Hospital at his behest, and he analysed the results. Then I was recommended several vitamins, minerals and oils – all supplements available from health food shops, apothecaries and the like. Fish oil, b vitamins, a good multivitamin and a few other supplements. Dr O Flaherty asserted that my condition would improve but that it might take several months for the improvement to become noticeable.
My health did indeed improve. I came to the doctor as a ‘chronic schizophrenic’. The therapy helped give me the strength to quit smoking. I got a job and a social flat. Today it’s probably over 20 years since my consultations with Edmund (Dr O Flaherty). I still follow a holistic regime, hold down a job in the health service and am in relatively good health (being in my mid-50’s). I continue to take psychiatric drugs also – though these are minimised as a result of the holistic interventions. I still endure fairly regular episodes of voices but in my understanding, there is nothing that could extinguish these. I don’t want my voices to disappear, painful though episodes are. Through the work of the Hearing Voices Network I have learned to accept them and have found meaning and metaphor in them.
I owe a tremendous debt to Dr O’Flaherty. He helped get me on the path to genuine recovery. Also pivotal in my journey was the therapeutic and professional relationship established with an OT Manager who helped me progress my vocational endeavours. I am currently the only Survivor-User of Psychiatry that I know of who leads a Peer/therapeutic programme within the HSE. I am still in relatively good health, where the life expectancy of those of us labelled with ‘paranoid schizophrenia’ is statistically 20 years less than that of the general population.
I wrote an article on my experiences with holistic healthcare and mental health and you can find it here https://madinireland.com/2022/08/plant-medicine-psychiatry-and-me/
Martha’s chance meeting
This story starts in a pub around May 2011 where one night I happened to meet someone in a circle of friends that my husband knew, we got chatting about many things including mental health with us both discussing our own mental health challenges and how we navigate(d) them. Sean told me about Dr O’Flaherty and how he looked at bloodwork to treat mental health difficulties, thankfully I told my husband which comes in handy when my mental health is not at it’s best as he helpfully reminds me of things I say when I am well. He reminded me I had Dr O’Flaherty’s number when I was on some work leave due to mental ill health and encouraged me to give this route a try, which is also helpful when my head is not in a good space.
I have checked my emails for this timeline with Dr O’Flaherty, my first email was for an appointment as I could not get through on his phone, I had an appointment two days later, and I met with him in his practice in Stillorgan, I remember thinking his office was very like my office at the time – untidy but clean, but he knew where everything was, was an excellent listener and gave me lots of time at our first meeting. I quickly found out that he was also from Kerry, in fact we come from less than a mile away from each other beside beautiful Banna strand. He was apologetic about his fees, but told me that it covered visits to him for 6 months and bloodwork, some bloods were taken in his office and sent to New York. At that time it would take six weeks to get results back from New York, an eternity for the headspace I was in, bloods were also taken in a local hospital and they would be back within two weeks. After the first consultation he emailed me a list of supplements, another thing I appreciated as my memory can be very poor when I am unwell. The supplements were folic acid, Vitamin B12, Niacinamide, Zinc, Vitamin B6 or P5P, he recommended high doses of Vitamin C, Vitamin E, Morepa fish oils and a small amount of Magnesium. He recommended GABA three times to relieve anxiety. He put a little note in those covered timelines, how long it would be until I felt better and when symptoms would return if I stopped taking the vitamins. As someone who had only taken medication for my mental health this was strange to me.
When my bloods came back, I got Vitamin B12 injections monthly, some of the original list of vitamins was adapted with some increased and some decreased. Appointments could be booked by email or over the phone which again broke down barriers, Dr O’Flaherty always listened, always asked what I needed from him at every visit and would sometimes give me samples of vitamins he had in his practice. He loved chatting to me about Kerry, how he was the oldest son and was destined for farming, he said he had no interest and told me many times about how he loved his study time on Saturdays, he would spend hours reading, he told me many stories about other patients without breaking confidentiality, he had a passion for what he did and that was felt when I visited him.
Within a couple of months, I had energy like I never had before, a lot of my symptoms had left, my ability to think was the most interesting, I had the capacity to think clearer than I had ever before, in an email to him I described it as being much sharper and decisive, I took up running and felt the best I had ever, in the same email which was dated 28th March 2012, I had done my first 5km, I was aiming for a 10km in Kerry in August and had thoughts of a full or half marathon in Kerry (I never did do a run more than 10km). Prior to taking up running I used to have reoccurring dreams that I was running, those dreams stopped after I took up running.
I have not taken medication since 2009. When I had my children, I decided that I would bring them to Dr O’Flaherty, he was not taking on new patients, so his son Dr Andrew O’Flaherty took them on and is their doctor and is now mine since his dad retired and we find him excellent. I had a cry the night I got a phone call from Dr O’Flaherty to say he was retiring but I am so grateful to have met him and be treated by him. I called him a Maverick, and I am lucky to have stumbled upon him from a chance meeting to find another way to treat mental health that has certainly worked for me.