It's Where I Am with Zandra Polard

Wesley Knight 0:00
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Zandra Polard 0:43
Good morning Las Vegas. It's where I am. I'm Zandra Pollard, thank you for tuning in to 91.5 jazz and more. Well, he's back still in studio. He gave us a rich history of Altadena and the fires there last week. But he is a physician, so we want to get into his scope of medicine, which is pediatrics. So I wanted to ask you some questions about autism. We talk about that a lot. Can you explain to us about the spectrum of autism and some of the to knock some of the conspiracy theories of the what is it called the condition?

Anonymous 1:41
Okay, sure. So I'm pleased to be here with you. I'm going to tell you what I tell a lot of my patients. The truth hurts for a lot of people. So when people hear the truth, that's sometimes just what they don't want to hear. They want to hear what they want to hear. Yeah. And so there's a lot of misinformation on autism. And to me, you know, I'm an African. I was born in Africa. Most people don't know that I came here as a two month old baby, so I know very little about living in Africa, but I am an African. And the African ethos is when someone passes or some harm comes, or something's not right, someone else is to blame. So someone dies, like Ron Brown in an airplane. People fear that was delivered. He was killed. Okay, it's, it's secondary to accept the plane crash. That's just the way we are. Okay? It could be anything, evil, spirit, this, that, whatever conspiracy, but that's what that's that's in the back people's minds, where they realize it or not. And so when somebody has autism, especially when a celebrity's child has autism, it can't be them oh no, because they're supposed to be better than anyone else. They may not say that. They may not think they think that, but they do so it's for some other reason. The fact is, we really don't know what causes autism. Okay, okay, there, there's a lot of conjecture. There's a lot of things that kind of point to it in medicine. The best one I've heard is the age of the Father, just what people don't want to hear, 50 and older. But clearly that's not the main reason, or the only reason, or even the leading reason, because a lot of kids are artistic and the fathers aren't 50 or older. But the only thing I've seen that has an inkling of scientific suggestion. Okay, so this, this may even be in the womb. There's other theories about what people are eating when they're pregnant. And say it's all conjecture and early research. Okay, the fact is, we don't know the best thing that happened autism, more recently, despite, despite the treatment is called Get ASD autism spectrum disorder. It's on a spectrum. Yes, okay, so you can have somebody who's considered brilliant in a certain realm only, like Elon Musk, okay, Bill Gates, by the way, it's obvious to me, they're both autistic, but they're considered high functioning autistic people. But it's not hard, you know, you can watch Bill Gates. He stems. He goes back and forth when he's talking. He doesn't make good eye contact. His chest goes backwards and forwards. That's stem. It called stemming. He was uncomfortable speaking in public for years, and he's sort of coming out of it. He reads a lot, and he cares. When you listen to the guy, he cared, the things he talked about are human issues, okay, you know. And Elon Musk, you know, he was a hero to many. And most people don't know why he was a hero here on the internet, because he went after something called Naked shorting counterfeit share. So young people loved him. People don't, you know. And Tesla was designed to fail and be naked, sure, with counterfeit shares and write lies and articles. And he overcame that, and those one hedge fund lost 3 billion. So Elon Musk became a hero, but they didn't know there was going to be this big far right shift with Elon Musk. And one of the reasons I'm not blaming all on autism is people aren't blaming his background, South Africa, but they. Do focus on one thing and get entrenched. Okay, all right. So, I mean, you know, if you give a kid a diet, a car, and he wants dinosaurs, he may not play with a car, he might throw it. I mean, I mean, I'm just giving a simple example, but people who deal with this know what I'm talking about. Okay, so Elon Musk is stuck on internet, arguing with people, arguing people, you can't get off that because they get laser focused on something, sometimes hard to let it go. So it's a little bit of social misbalance, but that has nothing to do with intelligence. It's what people miss, just like we have people who are incredibly intelligent, who barely study, get A's on all their tests and become great scientists or leaders or whatever it is, artists, and we have other people who are just the complete opposite, that spectrum exists. Well, people are autistic.

Zandra Polard 5:49
I'm in education, so, you know, some of these kills kids. They're brilliant and they're

Anonymous 5:53
autistic, for sure, yeah, yeah. And so we don't really know what concept, but here's what we do. Know, children, if they get help, can do really well, almost all of them, okay. I mean, I've seen that disappointment. The system's not designed for me to talk to them and and try to, you know, put my arm around them and get them feeling better. So I, you know, you get, sometimes you get six to 10 minutes with a patient. And here I'm taking 3040, minutes. Then the next people can be angry for waiting. They don't care. Adults don't like to wait. They're in a hurry to go nowhere. That's what I say.

Zandra Polard 6:27
So a lot of the support needs to be for the parents. Oh, for sure, families to deal with right

Anonymous 6:32
children, right? But you said parents, not parent. So when one parent comes, or the grandmother and your community was best you can with them, what about the parent who wasn't there? They still may have all the wrong thoughts and backward thoughts and basically lies and stuff they got people typing away in their mom's basement. May not even finish high school. Okay, so this is a real problem. You're talking to one person time. You're not talking to everyone, but see, here's the key, if people are accepting and the kid gets evaluated, it's amazing how they can fly. I tell them that, and you want to start it too. There's very little benefit to starting before too. You can. There's nothing wrong with it. But two year olds want to show you what they can do, and they'll cooperate. The problem is, or I should say, can be, is when you suspect autism at three or four that is a problem, because they may not be when they're not in they may show you the finger and may not want to do what you want them to do. Or two year, you don't want to waste that two year to three year period, you see, because this is the bottom line, what nobody talks about.

Zandra Polard 7:34
Wait so early diagnosis you you can know before two years old if a child is okay, baby, you can

Anonymous 7:41
but, but see, autism can turn right or after 18 months. So you could see someone who is a year, 14 months and not and they don't show signs, and they some autistic kids go backwards with their language. They start out talking, reaching their milestones, doing milestones, doing great, okay, and then all of a sudden, things go backwards. That's kind of a classic description, but that's not always what we see. You see, but yes, I can tell in a kid sometimes before they're two years old, sure I can, but there's not a lot of help. In California, we have the regional center funded by the county, and they'll put them in early intervention. But not every state can does that all right, so, but you're not late at two or even two and a half. What I wanted to say was, this is what people I really want to realize impart on them. The key is to be ready for kindergarten. That's the bottom line. And here's why, if a child does not do well in kindergarten, they almost never are a good student. Okay, you cannot finish kindergarten be behind in reading. Going into first grade, you should spell three letter word. It's not hard to tell if you're behind. You don't need to do all this assessing. It's not hard to tell if a kid can't spell dog or cat or son or bun, and they're going to second grade, and the parents you could finally pull he's behind in reading, they're not going to be good students. You want to be ready for kindergarten. That's five years old. They absolutely need to go to preschool before not just for what I'm talking about, but socialization. But if they get the treatment, which is speech therapy, occupational therapy and ABA, they can fly. I've seen it over and over again. You get to the point you don't even realize they're autistic and they should get tipped. And then you can see it.

Zandra Polard 9:21
There's another thing I wanted to ask you about, is the Metformin so we're gonna shift and talk about those who take psychotropics. Is that what it's called medicines for a mental illness? So

Anonymous 9:38
Metformin is a medication be it's used for different things off label. But

Zandra Polard 9:41
are they called psychotropics? Well, not anymore, but,

Anonymous 9:45
but, but Metformin is really like it involves something called gluconeogenesis to keep your sugar in order. So it's like diabetic type two, early stage. I want weight loss.

Zandra Polard 9:56
I want to preface it, yeah, by saying a lot of people who take. Like medications for mental illness. A lot of times there's heavy weight gain, right? And that's true. I know that Metformin can possibly be used to counteract

Anonymous 10:15
that, right? See? So we're talking about something else, okay, this is not autism. We're talking No, this is not okay. I'm shifting. Oh, shifting. Okay, that's cool. So there are okay. Psychotropics have very negative connotation. Just when you say that to me, I get uptight, because I used to work in the ER, all right, kids take things they shouldn't take. You know, their their eyes are stuck looking up, their hands look like they're cramped and twisted. And people like, what happened? I'm like, probably took something. He did one of his mom's meds, you know, kid came home and whatever, got curious and took it. You know, it took too much. But I think you're talking about antidepressants. Is that, right? Yes. Okay, so antidepressants. So those of us who worked in the era forever, you know, psychotropics, antidepressants, the old antidepressants, weren't similar type problem in that they had narrow range of therapeutic use, and they became a problem. Okay, so the wrong meds to commit suicide. I mean, you know, attempt, excuse me, or take them the wrong ways. Kind of they were a lot of health risks and things associated were no good. The Nourse won't newer ones are much better. They're called serotonin, okay, agonist and they are much better, have much better safety profile. They're not the only solution for depression, okay, I'm not saying depressed. Go on on medication. Teenage depression is normal, okay? At least 60% teenagers will get depressed. You just have to recognize and work with them. Only a small group of those will need treatment, and those should get treatment. Okay? So it's better to understand how to deal with the kid instead of think they're spoiled brat. Usually, when someone thinks the teenager Spoiled Brat, they're very depressed. They're missing the boat on what the real problem just when someone in your family says, I'm not talking to her or him again, I want to choke them. Be careful. They're probably depressed. Okay, laugh. All right, so some of the antidepressants will, I wanted to choke a few mind, yeah, I hear you. But someone told me, I wish there was a really good choke one person a month. It would solve all problems, not kill them. Just choke them. Actually, you wouldn't because you don't know what the issue is. You got to know what the real problem. But yes, some of the antidepressants, Geodon is one that's notorious. They may help your depression, but they result in can result in tremendous weight gain, not everyone. It's like a switch off and on. It's either yes or no, and the astute clinician or therapist should put the person that form. The problem is the United States, the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing. A lot in medicine and just about everything else, and they don't want to get involved, because who's going to follow it? Well, now they got to communicate with a internist or a family doctor or pediatrician, and they just don't have those links. They might forward a chart or send him a visit you take care of. So there's not this great cohesiveness. There just isn't Yeah, and so, you know, in primary care, frontline medicine, there just isn't and so you can have the greatest therapist, but if they don't put your Metformin, you're gaining a Geodon, and you've gained 70 pounds, and then someone realizes you need help, they kind of miss the boat, and I say that's more common than the other way around. So

Zandra Polard 13:15
I heard someone called in and told me that they were taking an antidepressant, they were gaining all this weight, and years later, took years for them to even get the Metformin. That's like the doctor kept saying, Well, you don't have diabetes. You

Anonymous 13:31
have see, the doctor is not up to date on what we just talked about, right right now. Just so when

Zandra Polard 13:35
that person finally got the Metformin, they had it for a while, and then I think their net, their next physician that they were seeing, or something, just took them off of it. That's just it. Yeah, that's

Anonymous 13:50
a miss. I mean, I don't know all the reasons, but general, that's a mistake.

Zandra Polard 13:53
But how does that person

Anonymous 13:56
you see Be careful you're talking about a patient, because I don't know the details. For example, if the person went on Metformin and actually gained weight or didn't lose weight because the drinking juice, soda, Gatorade, talkies, Hot Cheetos, fast food, processed food, the interesting, well, it didn't work, but these things only work if you meet it halfway. So if your exercise, your diet, is not that of one who's working to lose weight and get in shape. You can't say, I mean, there's a lot of things like this that HCG injections worked, but the people get on corporate TV and say it didn't work. I put on weight, yeah? Because you went back to eating pizza every night, yeah, okay, and drinking sodas. So, you know, I'd have to have more information. But when you're gaining weight and you were not especially, you went overweight before and you went on Geodon, you're gonna have to either switch your medicine and go on Metformin and switch your medicine, that easy, if that's the one that ended up helping you and you were suffering for years. So this is complicated, but I would say that person should have never been taken on Metformin unless there was an alternative. Like, I don't know the details. Maybe they put them on something like, we'll go via, you know, or more. On jar, or one of these men, you know, I don't know all the details, but just to take them, and I don't have the details of of their diet. Or, yeah, you gotta be careful. In medicine, a lot of things are like that can but the reason why I brought it

Zandra Polard 15:10
up was because that particular person, you know, she had to advocate for herself multiple times to even get the med form right. Because

Anonymous 15:18
what we just discussed is because the right hand doesn't the left hand is doing the psychiatrist doesn't know the latest research, which is like more than 10 years ago. See, to stay up on it, you have to read a lot. You have to get continuing medical education credits. And a lot of people don't do this, or they'll look at a conference say, those are horrible lectures. That's not what I'm interested in. Other words, the things that you're uncomfortable with are the things you need to learn. You don't think they're direct related to what you do, but you're going to choose things that you already know a lot about, right? And you can learn that. You can

Zandra Polard 15:49
learn that right away on your own. That's called lazy. It's

Anonymous 15:53
just how people are wired. I mean, I can tell people, let's go this conversation. Lectures are horrible. I didn't miss anything. I'm like, Man, those were great. I didn't know any of that. It's amazing. I didn't know any of that. How's that possible? You know? I didn't know they, they put newborns with difficulties in hyperbaric chambers for three days. I mean, not hyperbaric, you know, cold, you know, you know where the temperatures really lowered. I didn't know that hyper hypothermic chambers. I didn't know that to keep your brain from being damaged. I don't know that. You think I know that. I mean, there's, I mean, you know, I didn't know these hemangiomas. If they're on your forehead, they look like little strawberries, okay, or little red M M's with no peanut okay, that we usually just wait for them to go away. But off your forehead, they got to be investigated. Maybe it goes to your eye or deeper. I mean, I knew if it was right near, I didn't know right between your eye and your nose is the worst place like these but my friends say, you know I know enough. I know enough about him. Man Jones, I've been doing it for 30 years. Why not go into that lecture? So, I mean, sometimes you don't know what you don't know you know. So those developments, no, I mean, I'm not gonna not knocking the therapist, the therapist, a lot of them have 800 patients, overworked, don't get lunch. They themselves are depressed. They're getting killed. They get no love, no get no appreciation. But the fact is, someone who gains weight on an anti President either needs to come off that fine one that works, and if they've been on a lot that didn't work, they need to go on, on, on Metformin, something to control the way is not their fault. Yes, that is true. And you know, one thing about therapists, we should remember they need a lot of love, is that no parents say their kids, I want you to be a therapist. Just please remember that behind every therapist is trauma itself. There's somebody who's which witnessed suicide in their family, depression, year, years of of being strangled by your depression. Can't function. You know, alcoholism, domestic violence, or what are their friends something that went through or they went through personally, I was saying that, of course, it's drug use too, right? It's tremendous suffering. People want to be therapists because they truly want to help people based on their own what they've witnessed in their own experiences, themselves, friends and family. That's just the truth. I have yet to meet a therapist that just decided to be a therapist. I'm sure they exist. Okay, I'm not saying they don't exist, but the therapist, I know, if you get to know them, well, they've been through enough themselves, and they want to really help people. It's a shame when young people say, I don't want to go to a therapist. They don't realize that. Well, who do you think should see a therapist? They're waiting just for you. They want to

Zandra Polard 18:31
talk to you. And you're lucky you got in because it's hard to get to them. You're lucky you're

Anonymous 18:34
in a situation where you can actually see it there. Yeah. Actually, the way I get kids to see a therapist is simple, you know? It's based on pre experience. Having a kid who needed a therapist, I drive in there, won't even get out the car. What am I supposed to wrestle with them? What good is that going to do? Therapists I want to see if you don't want to see them, I tell them it shouldn't just be athletes and celebrities who see therapists, and they say they're so brave. Look at what they're doing for mental health. We admire them. They have so much courage, and they're celebrated. More recently, this picture for this baseball player, mean for the Boston Red Sox came out with all mental health issues. God help. He almost hit he came close to suicide a few years ago, and this he's so brave. He's done so much. But for the regular person who's not a celebrity or an athlete, it's like, oh, what? You're weak. You got a problem. Just go talk to a pastor. You know, you cannot treat depression by talking to somebody till you're they're blue in the face. They don't need a pep talk. All that shows is you don't understand their pain, the severity, what they're going through, right? I mean, if you tell if you tell a teen, there's other people out there, they'll always find some out someone else. When their girlfriend or boyfriend broke up with them, they might kill themselves. You might have just pushed them over because that tells them you don't understand how much it hurts if that's ever to happen to you. Most people been through that as a teenager. You know. That hurts, and what you need is somebody just to listen to you and tell you, it hurts, doesn't it? Yeah, you're in pain. I feel you. You don't have to give them a solution. I'll throw them out as a family member. You have to listen to them and ask them, do they want to talk someone, encourage them and be understanding. That's what you need to do. But what do people think they need a pep talk. That's not the solution.

Zandra Polard 20:25
And the people who are talking, they want to make themselves feel good. The pep talk person really helping them like you're saying they're not helping. The person

Anonymous 20:31
suffering will give them a cue, a clue that that's not helping, and they'll just retrench and try harder and say things, same things, over and over. So finally, they'll acknowledge you, just to get rid of you, and you'll think you did good Exactly. And now you got somebody who says, even they don't understand me, and they're close to me, and that's a bad feeling. That's a dangerous place to be in, where you think nobody understands you, even the people who should. So, I mean, people got to be real too, who hasn't been dumped or been through a lot. Know how that hurts. There's nothing wrong with not having a solution and telling someone you acknowledge their pain.

Zandra Polard 21:07
If you don't know, yeah, just acknowledge your pain. Yeah, yeah, for sure. I

Anonymous 21:11
mean, Trump could have done that. Now to Nina, right? He's talking about Palisades. He said it's like an incineration, okay, genius. It's like incineration. You're right. But what about everyone's pain? What about Altadena? You couldn't throw a bone that would have went miles, by the way, there's the Republicans in Altadena, okay, I don't know. You know, diversity means diversity, yeah, it's mostly, you know, democratic, liberal or real left, okay? Socialist. I mean, you know, it's very diverse, but to think there are no Republicans, there is a big mistake.

Zandra Polard 21:47
Okay, so we talked about autism the spectrum, antidepressants, with metformin. Now I want to talk about when it's time to get the diagnosis. So first, usually, you see the patient and you send, you give the referral to see a therapist. Is that not true? No, okay,

Anonymous 22:17
you It's you cannot take, you know, it's kind of what we were just talking about. You cannot tell a kid you need to see a therapist. I'm putting referral. The chances of going are close to zero. Remember, the parent may not agree. If they did, there may be another parent. What if the parents aren't together and and the other parent is detached but loves to come and make these kind of always said

Zandra Polard 22:36
that to see your primary care physician to get a referral.

Anonymous 22:41
The correct way to do it, where I've always worked, it's a self referral. Now, sometimes, you know, you got to make a referral because, you know, I mean, I speak multiple languages, right? But sometimes the grandmother's there and you don't have to understand he's there. There might be a language bear people are, well, going through a lot that day, and or, or, to be honest, there's a lot of other problems. There's a problem listed, like 10,000 problem list of like, 10 things, asthma, eczema, you know, poor grades. You're talking about ingrom, Tony. Oh, and then you start talking about, it's too much, yeah. And so sometimes you put in referral, just to make sure there's a communication. But the reality is, there should be a self referral, things like going to the eye doctor, Optometry, within your health. Seeker, vision, chance self referral should be self referral. And asking for therapists should be self referral. It should be set up so the first visit is on the phone so they can discuss if there's something the two parties want to really do, and the teen should be able to call. You know, adult depression is a little different. Okay? Then teen depression, okay. Teens brains are being rewired to go from teen, young adulthood, adulthood, and why people assume that would be clean and no errors, I don't know why people assume that. I mean, if someone's working on your computer with all the cables, and you come in the next day, you can tell somebody was there. I don't care how good a job they did. And so it things don't have to be off by very much with your neurotransmitters. And you will get to you have the potentials there. And so, you know, it's usually six months to two years, and, you know, kids can snap out of it. Talk some about it, the issues when it's two years, is that really worth going through like that? You need help. And then there's depression. That way we commonly think about it, or, or, you know, it seems like a lot of people in their family depresses adults. That's a lot different. I mean, we have kids who are flirty, depressed, and it's not not simple as writing saying, Oh, it's

Zandra Polard 24:33
self referral if it's dealing with like depression. But there are other mental illnesses out there that need a referral.

Anonymous 24:42
But yes, they you and you can go that route. But remember, you cannot solve a mental health issue without a two way street. And you know, if anyone your family is about drugs, you know that's true. They cannot get help until they want help. No matter what you think, you can waste money, you can put them in a home, you can do everything, but unless they need help. Uh, excuse me, accept help, and it's hard for them accept help until they get to the realization that's what they need and the underlying issues are known. Okay. I mean, it's a bit much for somebody who's gone through all this trauma and tell them they need help. Go get help. It's like just a minute. But what about everything they went through? Okay, that's got that not the person advise him. The person themselves, who's suffering has to realize, I've been through a lot, explain some of my behavior. I need help. But if you say, you know, I can control it, control it, some

Zandra Polard 25:34
people think they can, and other people can tell. Well, it's classic,

Anonymous 25:38
but the minute the person can't function the way they're supposed to function, like, for example, not going to school, had good grades, their grades are dropping, lost their job, all kinds of problems in interpersonal relationships, including their family, their loved ones. You know, you know, getting speeding tickets, getting car accidents. Then when you can't function on a daily level the way you're supposed to function, you've got a serious problem. And usually when you're doing something that is injurious yourself, you can only hide it for so long. The other thing is, you know, I just want, I just really want to say, this is that when it comes to drinking, which, you know, people say, I can control it. Okay, if you notice someone is drinking a lot, they got a problem if you drink, but you don't really notice it. Like you walk in a hotel in Cuba, they give everyone mojitos, and so you have a mojito. I said, Do you notice that person? I really want to they don't got a problem. But if you're talking to a friend, you know, and seems like they're always got a drink, or you go to the same functions they go to, and they always have a lot more to drinking on us. You're talking neighbor. You smell alcohol on their breath most of the time you talk to them. They got a problem. People don't have problem. You don't really notice they're drinking. I mean, you may see them drinking, yeah, but you don't notice it. As a pro, when you can notice a problem, it is a problem. Oh god.

Zandra Polard 26:56
Well, let me put my

drink down. You No, I

want to thank you again for coming in, man, you you're just a wealth of information, and you are welcome anytime to it's where I am. And you know little secret here, this is my stepfather, so thank you again for coming in from California.

Anonymous 27:21
Well, thank you. I just want to close with this. You know, I say to going back to autism, I like to tell the parent, or parents where I'm talking about whatever you envision for your child, whatever it is, college, marriage, whatever you you saw, every parent has a vision for their child. May not be with their vision. I said it's all still possible if they get the help they need. But if you squander time, waste time, come up with all these other ideas and go down that route, yeah, excuse, you're wasting valuable time. Okay, they need to do good in kindergarten, and they can if they get the help. So if they're diagnosed at two, two and a half, it gives them two and a half, three years to get help. It can be done,

Zandra Polard 28:00
all right. Early prevention, alright. So I want to thank you again for coming all the way down to be on the show. Finally, this is Andre Pollard. The show is, it's where I am. I'm here every Saturday at 7:30am on 91.5 jazz and more. If you've missed any portion of this broadcast, you know you can find it on any major podcast platform. Thank you. I'll be back at 730 next Saturday. Bye. You.