Depression Treatment – What About Drugs?
When seeking depression treatment, one of the questions that will quickly arise is do you need drugs to feel better? Do you need antidepressants to stop suicidal thoughts or ugly mood shifts? The answer is complicated.
The best quick answer is sometimes. Sometimes drugs will be necessary for the treatment of depression, sometimes they wont be. How do you know which sometimes is which? To start with, you should always check with your doctor. Describe your symptoms, and see what they say.
The good news is that these days there is plenty of good help for depression, so you will likely get better treatment and can start feeling better sometimes in just hours or a few days. Please don’t hesitate to see your doctor.
The thing is, in general, it is usually wise to avoid prescription medications because of side effects. Depression drugs have side effects, so if you can avoid them, in the long term you may be better off.
But there are many forms and depths of depression that will respond best to drug therapy. Severe depression can be lifted in just a few short days with the right drugs. Manic depression can also need antidepressants for the fastest relief.
And just because your doctor might recommend anti depressants, it doesnt mean you will need to continue to take them forever. So if your doctor recommends drugs, which they often will, you can then ask them for how long they think you might need them?
Further, if they put you on antidepressants, you should ask to also see a therapist or psychiatrist, so you are getting proper evaluation and on going care from a mental health professional rather than just a medical doctor. They can often help you to deal with depression issues more effectively by combining drug and talk therapy.
And, many forms of depression may need no drugs whatsoever. If you are feeling down or depressed or having dark mood swings but are still able to function and go to work and take care of business, that is often a good sign that you can use natural remedies to beat depression without drugs.