Depression

What is depression?

You might often hear someone say that they are feeling depressed when they are feeling sad/miserable about their life, but these feelings mostly pass, given a little time. However, when those feelings build up, start to interfere with your daily life, and do not fade/pass within a couple of weeks, or if those feelings keep on returning over and over again for days on end, then you could be what is called ‘clinically’ depressed. This kind of major clinical depression when extreme can be life threatening due to the associated feelings/thoughts of suicide, of giving up on the will to carry on living.

Your IPSA Medical depression consultation

Treating your depression in a calm and client-centred manner, your IPSA Medical practitioner will work through your full-length consultation alongside you, discussing your presenting depression symptoms with you in IPSA Medical’s private and conducive clinic setting. Your IPSA Medical physician is highly skilled at enabling you to talk through your concerns and ask questions about your depression symptoms, and he or she will also discuss the different depression treatments with you, where the key focus of the chosen treatment will be to reduce your depression symptoms for you to be able to function on a daily basis. Your IPSA Medical practitioner will recommend reviews on a regular basis so as to monitor your on-going depression treatment and will book you in for regular review sessions, with reminders being sent to you prior to each appointment. You have instant access to your IPSA Medical practitioner during the week and at weekends should you need any additional help or advice.

What are the causes of depression?

Depression takes different forms and is different for each person, ranging from feeling sad/negative to the extreme feeling of wanting to end it all, and it can be triggered by one incident or can be due to a combination of issues. Occasionally, the onset of your depression might not have an obvious cause or trigger.

Depression and life events

Often, the first experience of being depressed comes about due to a triggering event, which is often an unwelcome event or a traumatic event (e.g. going through a divorce, being sacked from work, or experiencing a physical assault or sexual assault).

Depression and loss

Often, the events and experiences that act to trigger your depression can stem from some type of loss (e.g. following an actual death of someone you loved or were close to, or from a critical and life-changing incident).

Depression and frozen anger

Sometimes, the root of your depression is from ‘frozen anger’, where the anger that you feel is pushed inwards (internalised) and then your ‘external’ expression of this supressed/frozen anger is depression.

Depression and negative childhood experiences

If you have experienced events during your childhood that were traumatic, or if you suffered from either physical or emotional abuse as a child, then these experiences can leave you with coping difficulties when you reach adulthood.

Depression caused by physical conditions

Depression linked to your diet

Having a poor dietary intake or lacking fitness can both contribute towards depression.

Depression and genetics

Depression has been proven to have a family link to some degree; however, no specific genes directly associated with ‘depression’ have been identified. Some of us, however, do seem more prone to experiencing a ‘low mood’ or ‘prone to getting depression’ than other people are.

Depression due to chemical changes in your brain

Antidepressants function in your system by altering the chemistry in your brain, thus the assumption is that depression is therefore caused by these changes in your brain’s chemistry, with these changes being ‘corrected’ in some way via antidepressant drugs.

IPSA Medical and antidepressant medication for your depression

Antidepressant medications are drugs (e.g. selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors: SSRIs) that affect specific chemicals in your brain (e.g. noradrenaline and serotonin) to enhance or lift your mood. It can take anywhere from 2–6 weeks for these antidepressant drugs to fully take effect. These medications do not strictly ‘cure’ depression; they allow you to experience feeling much ‘better’, with the upshot of taking the antidepressant medication being that you might then be more able to take positive steps towards dealing with the issues that have triggered your depressive state.

At IPSA Medical, your IPSA Medical physician will usually recommend that you remain on your antidepressant medication for at least 6 months after you have begun to feel better; this is to prevent your depression from resurfacing.

If you are ready to have your depression consultation with one of IPSA Medical’s skilled practitioners, then book your consultation online or phone IPSA Medical today to arrange your same-day IPSA Medical full-length depression consultation.