Depression has become a major disease that threatens human health, and people should be warned from the suicide of famous singers. Paying attention to depression and treating depression correctly should draw our attention, but the author still found that many people have misconceptions about depression in clinical practice.
Myth 1: Depression is a problem of the mind
Many family members think that depression is not a disease, but only a problem of thought. A moment of thinking, after persuasion will be good, and blame the patient why do not want to open point. In this way, relatives and friends take turns to do ideological work for them, hoping to solve a certain psychological knot to cure depression, or simply ignore it and let them figure it out on their own.
Myth 2: Depression is a sleep problem
Many patients usually complain of poor sleep, and it is often the only complaint, and they do not mention anything about their depressed mood.
Myth 3: It’s a psychological problem
Unlike misconception 1, these patients know that depression is a disease and needs to be treated, but they strongly disagree with medication and just repeatedly go to a psychiatrist. However, most experts now believe that depression should be treated first with medication and supplemented with psychotherapy when necessary.
Myth 4: Depression cannot be cured
Some patients who take antidepressants for a short time (usually less than 2 weeks) do not find immediate effect, so they have no patience and think that the drugs do not work at all, so they do not want to take antidepressants again; or a variety of antidepressants do not work well, so they think that depression is a disease that cannot be cured.
Myth 5: Stop taking medication when symptoms are eliminated
Many patients have their symptoms quickly relieved or eliminated by antidepressant treatment, so they immediately stop taking the medication and stop seeing the physician, and after a short time, the symptoms appear again, and later, after using the same dose of the original antidepressant, they find that the efficacy is not as good as before.
Myth 6: Taking medication will make you stupid
Certain antidepressants have a sedative effect, and drowsiness and dizziness appear after using them. So some people say that is eaten by the medicine and do not want to eat again. Or nausea, sweating and other reactions to immediately stop the drug, suspected of its toxic side effects are too large, especially these patients are psychologically sensitive, the instructions to take a look, as if what adverse reactions will happen to their own body and unwilling to take the drug.
Myth 7: Depression does not require inpatient treatment
Some family members think that these patients are not noisy and do not need to be hospitalized, especially because they are afraid to go to a psychiatric hospital for treatment. But for major depression, because there is a 15% suicide rate, coupled with antidepressants are unlikely to work in the short term often prevented, and finally family members regret too much.
Myth 8: Headache is not depression
Some patients have repeatedly visited many large general hospitals for headache or somatic pain, and have done various examinations, including CT, MRI, etc., but they can’t find anything wrong, but they are afraid to go to a psychiatric hospital to have a look, not believing that they may be depressed. Clinically, it is called insidious depression or somatoform disorder, that is, no obvious symptoms of depressed mood, but the main complaint of somatic pain and discomfort, but can not find the problem.
Myth 9: You have to take medication for life if you have depression
Some patients believe that antidepressants have to be taken for life and that dependence is easy to form. It is true that some patients do not have high compliance and stop taking the medication when their symptoms are relieved, resulting in multiple relapses of depression and much less effective treatment, so they may need to take the medication for several years or even for life. However, for most patients with their first episode of depression, it is possible to gradually stop taking the medication after 6-8 months or at most 2-3 years.
Myth 10: Antidepressants can cause mania
Some antidepressants may turn manic, especially in cases with alternating episodes of depression and euphoria in the medical history, which requires the use of mood stabilizers, such as lithium carbonate, etc. When appropriate, antidepressants also need to be discontinued, but for patients with monophasic depression, generally will not turn manic.
Expert opinion.
Depression is not a problem of the mind, it is impossible to do through ideological and political work, it is a disease that requires medication supplemented by psychotherapy, sleep problems are often its most prominent symptom, but not all, the core symptom is a depressed state of mind as well as a lack of motivation. Sleep medication alone will not work, and again psychotherapy may increase patient compliance, but the main treatment will have to rely on antidepressants and other methods.
Medication will not have a significant effect in the short term and usually takes 2-3 weeks, starting with improved sleep and followed by the elimination of depressive symptoms. Medication needs to be consolidated and maintained for 6-8 months or even 2-3 years to prevent relapse, but of course the amount of medication can be reduced later.
In order to reduce drug side effects, we can arrange the drugs to be taken at different times according to the condition and drug properties, and the adverse effects will generally be gradually eliminated as the treatment continues.