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If you are lucky, your PCP will check for the physical causes of depression, such as the ones you have just described. Sadly, in my experience as a person with
by Arete314159 5y ago
If you are lucky, your PCP will check for the physical causes of depression, such as the ones you have just described. Sadly, in my experience as a person with depression, most of the time they just hand you a free sample of an SSRI and call it a day.
I found out 15 years after first being seen for depression that one of my root causes was a B-12 deficiency. Nobody had ever thought to check for it.
I have a short essay about checking for some of the other physical root causes for depression here: https://radiosof.com/category/mental-health/ https://radiosof.com/category/mental-health/
and here: https://appliedgrace.wordpress.com/2012/12/08/a-simple-mental-health-protocol-whose-time-is-long-overdue/ https://appliedgrace.wordpress.com/2012/12/08/a-simple-menta...
- nradov 5y agoI suspect that there's a hidden epidemic of subtle nutritional deficiencies. Everyone just accepts the situation but widespread screening would likely pay huge societal dividends.
- Arete314159 5y agoHard agree. Especially since modern farming methods create food with much less nutritional value than it used to have. But nobody gets rich off of magnesium supplements, so we don't check magnesium levels for anxiety (for example). If you have a health problem, make sure to try to have a problem that has a lucrative treatment.
- satellite2 5y agoDefinitely, even without screening, the first step should be a prescription for basic OTC nutrients for which people are often deficient and that are associated with depression, zinc, vitamin D etc... Similarly, most of the time people leave the doctor with a prescription for paracetamol and an advice to monitor the symptoms and come back a short while after if the symptoms don't improve. It's simply a low cost and efficient first step of the diagnostic.