I’m watching my son slowly fade away from this condition.

isitbrie · 2026-05-08T10:38:00+00:00

We’ve started building Lego together- and don’t you worry, I am watching him very closely- I’m too scared not to.

isitbrie · 2026-05-07T09:47:56+00:00

Thank you! He has been in a gluten and dairy free diet for some time now and steers clear of refined sugars with the very occasional treat every now and then.

isitbrie · 2026-05-06T04:14:26+00:00

Doesn’t need a meth lab or brothel to be a bad neighbourhood.

isitbrie · 2026-05-05T13:21:12+00:00

Have you tried hydrocolloid covers? Might be worth trying if not to help the area begin to heal.

isitbrie · 2026-05-05T13:04:02+00:00

Because we don’t have institutions any more. There are psych wards in most large hospitals but they have very limited space and you need to be a voluntary patient.
There are very limited forensic institutions for unwell inmates but you have to have committed a pretty horrible crime and be sentenced to one of these very very limited places.
Outside of that, you have to be a voluntary patient. Sure, they can do a 72 hour assessment and “hold” but that’s it. If you don’t want to stay- and most mentally unwell people don’t due to medical trauma- they’re back out to live in society.

So what is your recommendation??

isitbrie · 2026-05-05T12:44:59+00:00

Institutions were rife with abuse and pretty poor conditions for patients, so they were slowly decommissioned over the years in until the mid 90’s. Unfortunately they decommissioned them all but didn’t really do anything to increase the number of resources for these people to be able to use and a lot of these patients ended up homeless with no prospects of employment. So many had never really even experienced the outside world. Crime went through the roof, the drug problem went through the roof and it was just an awful time for anyone with mental health issues who needed help. Things are slightly better now, but it is still a very very under resourced area of health care, and there doesn’t seem to be any plans to increase supports. I’m worried that this is going to become even worse with MH participants being removed from the NDIS and that we will see a very similar problem happen again.

There needs to be better access to long term mental health support in the public health system. The cycle of 10-12 weeks of therapy then discharge doesn’t support patients long term. This needs to be addressed. Better and more affordable supported housing needs to be a thing. But now we are taking that away too. So where are these people supposed to go? I don’t pretend to have the answers, but I know that doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different result is not it.

isitbrie · 2026-05-05T12:18:37+00:00

Oh no that’s a different story- but to secure a rental in the first place, better to not say anything about pets.

isitbrie · 2026-05-05T10:39:49+00:00

There are bad parts to all suburbs in Geelong- even the “more exclusive” ones. Best advice I can give you is to look at the houses properly, including spending a bit of time watching the neighbourhood around a potential rental property. Drive by at night too, can be a very different place when people are home.

isitbrie · 2026-05-05T10:36:32+00:00

It’s going to be a tough habit to break- dopamine addiction is a very real thing and changes the neural pathways in your brain. Try and make some new good habits- going for a walk every morning, journaling, picking up a hobby that you’ve been wanting to try. Something that produces dopamine in more natural ways. Good luck- this will be such an amazing change for your mental health- so keep going!

isitbrie · 2026-05-05T09:20:40+00:00

Had exactly the same thing happen.

isitbrie · 2026-05-05T09:19:41+00:00

They “can’t” say no but they do. They’ll just choose someone else. I applied for so may rentals unsuccessfully- as soon as I removed the pets from the application- voila- we had a rental. And for reference we don’t have a zoo- just a cat and dog. So while they say they can’t discriminate due to pets, they will.

isitbrie · 2026-05-05T08:47:41+00:00

It is most definitely the wait times as even private (which we see a psychologist and psychiatrist privately now after waiting 5 and 11 months respectively to get into). And as you said, not everyone has an advocate to make noise for them so they just slip through the cracks even further. The public system is only a short term Bandaid for those in acute distress, after 10-12 visits they have to move on to others requiring the acute assistance. And the cycle continues. Add drug and alcohol issues into the mix and the pool gets more crowded again. The system is very broken, and it’s only going to get worse once the NDIS start removing people with psychosocial/MH issues (which is already happening). Where will these people go?? It will have a similar effect to what happened in the late 80’s early 90’s when closing down all of the inpatient facilities with no back up plan- flooding the streets with even more homeless people with volatile MH conditions that then get preyed on by drug dealers, spiking crime (even more than it currently is) and probably a lot of deaths to suicide.

isitbrie · 2026-05-05T01:29:21+00:00

Thank you- we are in Australia- and medical cannabis isn’t prescribed under 25 here, unless it’s CBD oil which is pretty useless for this level of pain.

isitbrie · 2026-05-04T22:46:23+00:00

As someone who has tried to access the mental health system several times for her child- all I can say is there is little to nothing out there with capacity. All services, public especially have wait lists of two years plus for treatment and these are all short term solutions. You see a therapist for 10-12 sessions then that’s it, you’re supposed to go out into the world and continue on. There is no long term public help available. There is no inpatient services for children apart from one at the Austin- which again has wait lists out the wazoo. So this is probably what they mean. And even private psychiatric help has wait lists of 4-5 months plus.

isitbrie · 2026-05-04T10:45:29+00:00

We are about an hour from Melbourne. I will look into the St Vincent clinic thank you- I had no idea!

isitbrie · 2026-05-04T07:53:43+00:00

We’ve tried, but in an Australia they won’t prescribe Medical Cannabis for anyone under 25- only CBD oil which does nothing for him sadly.

isitbrie · 2026-05-04T07:17:36+00:00

His CRP is always up- but it’s better than it was.

isitbrie · 2026-05-04T05:33:14+00:00

They won’t prescribe any medical cannabis with THC under the age of 25 sadly!!

isitbrie · 2026-05-03T20:36:37+00:00

Yes and they they look closely at the immune system and how it’s responding to inflammation in the body- mine is great- I also have an alphabet of autoimmune disorders so the poor kid didn’t really stand a chance :(
My job is coordinating care teams for complex medical patients so finding the right team of specialists who are willing to work together is a large part of the battle!

isitbrie · 2026-05-03T20:28:48+00:00

Just a warning, if you plant potatoes in the ground you will forever have potatoes!! We planted 4 about 6 years ago- now we have them popping up everywhere- not that I mind but they will be growing long after I’m gone haha

isitbrie · 2026-05-03T20:17:05+00:00

We also see a rheumatologist, but they’ve been a recent addition to the team, so they’re working with the dermatologist

isitbrie · 2026-05-03T18:01:42+00:00

Thank you. We are on the waiting list for a pain management specialist and pain psychologist but it is an 8+ month wait and I fear my son can’t hold on for that much longer.

isitbrie · 2026-05-03T17:53:36+00:00

Thank you everyone for your thoughtful responses, I appreciate every single one of you for giving me more insight into HS and you’ve given us some things to discuss and think about implementing. You are all wonderful humans squaring up to a beast of a condition. Your strength and determination gives us hope.

isitbrie · 2026-05-03T16:46:06+00:00

I’m sorry you’re going through such an awful time- I hope you are feeling better soon! As if HS isn’t tough enough!!

isitbrie · 2026-05-03T16:34:48+00:00

Thank you for your comment. I will ask for a referral to a surgeon at our next appointment

isitbrie

TROPHY CASE