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  3. It’s this very simple cheek swab, and it’s going to tell us how each of the enzyme systems and how the patient’s going to metabolize the psych medication.

It’s this very simple cheek swab, and it’s going to tell us how each of the enzyme systems and how the patient’s going to metabolize the psych medication.

Dawn Johnson, Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner

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Whether it’s a coping mechanism, self medication, or addiction, we want to look at those behaviors because all three of those are unhealthy ways to respond to a stressor in life.

My name is Dawn Johnson. I am a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner. I work for Indiana Center for Recovery at the South Bend location.

I typically treat patients with mental health and addictions. When a patient comes in to us and they’re needing treatment for mental health and addictions, we look at the whole person, their mental, physical, spiritual, their family. We want to look at what medications they’ve been on the past when they have tried to get help. So a lot of times when a patient comes in here, they’ve had a medication failure or more than one.

And when they come to us by the time they get at this level of care, they typically are afraid of medications. And they’re going to tell me, I’m not going to be a guinea pig. You’re not going to throw meds at me and so that’s where GeneSight comes in really handy for us because we can show them no, you know, you’re not going to be a guinea pig. We can get this back in a few days, we can sit down and talk about what you’ve been on in the past and that gives them a lot of reassurance and comfort to know that we’re not just customizing the plan for them based on their genetic makeup.

So the GeneSIght test is a genetic test that tells us how you metabolize medications.

It’s this very simple cheek swab, and it’s going to tell us how each of the enzyme systems and how the patient’s going to metabolize the psych medication. So then we can make a good choice on which medication to to use to avoid side effects or just the medication being ineffective for the patient. When patients start to feel better and the substance of abuse is getting out of their system and the medications are starting to work, they usually their countenance will change, their face will brighten up, they will be happier, they will engage more with other people, they’ll stop isolating, that’s called peace.

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