Depression Can Effect Your Health

Depression can effect your health in many ways.

• Even it is beleived that depression can cause cancer and aggravate the symptoms in diagnosed cases of cancer patients.
• It is found that in cancer patients with depression has decrease in the T- lymphocyters. We know that T- lymphocytes are very impoprtant to control the cancer cells.Following are the common findings in depressed patients.
1. Sleep disturbance
   1. Depression effect your mind give rise to mental illness.
   2. Sleep disturbance may the first sign of depression.
   3. Trouble falling asleep or staying asleep is common in people who are depressed.
   4. But some people with depression may sleep too much.
2. Chest Pain or cardiac pain like symptoms
   1. Sometimes chest pains can be a sign of depressio
   2. There’s also a link between depression and heart disease.
   3. Chest pains can be a sign of a heart or lung disease.. Consult your family physian to rule out any real pathology in heart or the lung.
   4. Depression can increase your risk of heart disease.
   5. People with heart attacks are more likely to be depressed.
3. Fatigue and Exhaustion
   1. If you feel exhausted for day to day work and have no energy, that may be a sign of depression.
   2. After normal sleep and enough rest if still you feel tired, that is sign of depression.
   3. Depression and fatigue are related with each other.
   4. According to one major study, people who are depressed are more than four times as likely to develop unexplained fatigue.
   5. People who suffer from fatigue are nearly three times as likely to become depressed.
   6. Depression and fatigue together tend to make both conditions seem worse.
4. Muscle Aches and Joint Pain
   1. Pain and depression are closely linked.
   2. Living with chronic pain can increase the risk of depression.
   3. Depression itself may lead to pain because the two conditions share chemical messengers in the brain.
5. GIT, gastrointestinal symptoms
   1. Our brains and digestive systems are strongly connected,
   2. When we are stressed or worried we may get nausea or vomiting.
   3. Depression can get you in your gut too and causing symptoms of nausea, indigestion, diarrhea, or constipation.
6. Headaches
   1. Headach is he coomon presentaion in patients with depression.
   2. Depression may lead to chronic headache.
   3. One study showed that people with major depression are three times more likely to have migraines.
   4. While people with migraines are five times more likely to become depressed.
7. Changes in Appetite or Weight or disorders of eatingt
   1. Some people lose their appetite when they feel depressed.
   2. While some people do overeating and can not stop eating.
   3. By over eating they think that it is helping them in their frustration and misery.
   4. Over eating will lead to weight gain.
   5. Some time they eat less and have lake of energy.
   6. Depression has been linked to eating disorders like bulimia, anorexia.
   7. Disorders of eating or binge eating. In women, is the link between depression and anorexia or bulimia.
8. Back Pain
   1. Chronic back pain may contribute to depression.
   2. But depression may increase a person’s risk of developing back pain, too.
   3. People who are depressed may be four times more likely to develop intense, disabling neck or back pain.
9. Agitation and Restlessness
   1. Irritability and restlessness may be related to sleep problems or symptoms of depression.
   2. Depression increases the risk of alcohol or other substance abuse.
   3. Depression also can contribute to irritability and restlessness.
   4. Men are more likely than women to be irritable when they’re depressed.
10. Sexual Problems and drug use
    1. Depressed people lose ineterest in sex.
    2. Severe depression can have an impact on sex.
    3. Depressed [eople have more tendency to use drugs and alcohol.
    4. Drugs and alcohol may reduse desire for sex.
11. Therapeutic drugs
    1. Some of the prescription drugs for depression may reduce your desire for sex.
    2. Some other drugs for heart patient may also effect sex.
12. How to treat depression
    1. Exercise
    2. Regular excercise keep you fit and also produce chemical substances in the brain that make you:
       1. Feel good.
       2. Improve your mood.
       3. Reduce your sensitivity to pain.
       4. Excercise helpto reduce your depression over the long term.
       5. If you do excercise that may also increase your enengy level.
       6. Exercise can improve energy, ease fatigue, and help you sleep better.

Dr.Riaz Bhutta (modified from web MD)