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When Depression is a Symptom

Depression is not only a major issue that negatively affects millions of lives, it is also a symptom of hundreds of dangerous medical diseases. In fact, some people only find out they have a genetic disease because they went to their doctor for treatment of depression and received a full physical work up.

While not every disease is curable, many of those that have depression as a symptom are treatable and manageable. Working with your doctor to treat your disease and work on halting its progress also gives you the opportunity to help heal the physical and mental issues that happen as a result of depression.

Depression therapy is particularly helpful when it is used in conjunction with medications from your physician.

Sal said:

When I first got my diagnosis of Sarcoidosis, I was angry and depressed and, physically, in very bad shape. My wife thought that I was so depressed because of the diagnosis, but the truth is that I had been feeling depressed and anxious for many months before that. It wasn’t the diagnosis that had changed the way I was feeling; it was the disease of Sarcoidosis itself. Depression was a symptom of the disease, not a result of being told I had the disease. I started my treatment to begin managing the progression of the disease and it did help with the depression. I still needed therapy at that point to help me fully deal with the depression, because just medication could not help at that point.

There are a number of medical conditions that can contribute to depression, such as heart disease, cancer, and HIV. This can be in part because of the physical weakness and both physical and mental stress that these illnesses cause. Physical weakness and stress can trigger depression, but it is important to know that depression can make other illnesses worse because it weakens the immune system. There are also cases where the medication used to treat other conditions to contribute to depression

If you have a disease with depression as a symptom, do not be afraid to call a Therapist to help your healing process begin at multiple levels.

This article was written by Staff Writer, and posted on Wednesday, November 18th, 2009 at 8:22 am. It is filed under Therapy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.