What You Should Know About Depression Medications

Are you depressed? If so, don't feel alone. It happens to millions of Americans and others around the world. The thing that really stinks about depression is that, with all of our technology and medical "know how", we still haven't come up with a sure fire cure for depression. There's a reason behind this too. Read on.

The biggest issue that doctor's are having with finding a cure are that there are several different types of depression to deal with and of these, some have their own unique symptoms that must be dealt with. This is why some doctor's will give you more than one medication to try to help you. You could be suffering from a few different symptoms and they would have to give you a different medicine for each individual symptom. Example, you could be suffering from depression, anxiety and insomnia (loss of sleep). In this case, the doctor might give you an antidepressant drug like Zoloft, something to help your anxiety symptoms like Busbar and possibly Trazadone in order to help you sleep. This is all hypothetical, but comes from personal experience.

The only problem with antidepressant medications is that, in many instances, they only relieve the symptoms of depression about 70% of the time and of that, only partially. There are some people that must "try" several different medicines before they either find something that helps or choose to try something completely different, such as professional therapy. The problem with these medicines is that it takes three to four weeks for them to get fully integrated into your system. Only after this time has passed will you know if they are helping you, not helping you or making things worse. After this time frame has passed you may choose to try another medication and the process begins all over again. Whatever you do, never stop taking your medications without consulting your doctor first. This can be extremely dangerous in some cases.

Another issue with antidepressants are the side effects. These are always such a joy to deal with. Nervousness, diarrhea, constipation, insomnia, fatigue and more. Isn't it ironic that some of the side effects are things that you may have gone to the doctor to get help for in the first place?

There are other types of depression that are very serious such as Clinical depression or Manic (Bipolar) depression. People that suffer from these forms of depression suffer from an entire array of symptoms such as mood swings, sometimes violent, inability to have or maintain healthy relationships with friends or family, suicidal thoughts and more. Manic depressives have also been known to perform self mutilation, cutting themselves all over their arms and legs. Not deep enough to be life threatening normally, but enough to leave terrible scarring and cause themselves awful pain.

Depression is a terrible disorder that has become more and more common in this day and age. If you or some one you know suffer from symptoms of depression for more than two weeks, you need to seek medical help and find out what your options are. Good luck.