If you go to your doctor with symptoms of depression or anxiety, then chances are you'll get an SSRI* medication.
Honestly, you don't really need a doctor for this. Your doctor will do NO testing, NO bloodwork, and will pull a likely SSRI drug out of the air and tell you to try it. (I'm not critical: there ARE no tests for these medications). If it doesn't help, you'll be given another SSRI to try out.
You really should be able to go to a pharmacist for your SSRI prescription and skip the doctor visit.
*SSRI: Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor. A type of antidepressant that increases levels of serotonin in the brain. Serotonin is often referred to as the "feel-good hormone."
A Common Anxiety/Depression Patient Case History
(Excerpt from entire article you can READ HERE)
1: Patient presents to their doctor with stress, mild depression, and anxiety. They also have digestive problems, altered appetite, headaches, and can't sleep. But the doctor ignores all these other symptoms and refers the patient to a therapist.
2: The patient may see some improvements over time. However, they still have anxiety and other physical symptoms. The patient plateaus and stops improving but continues with therapy, and this could go on for decades.
3: OR: The patient develops periods of depression and panic attacks, becoming increasingly fragile. The patient is agitated, stressed, worried. The doctor refers them to their PCP or a psychiatrist that starts them on some combination of SSRI* medication.
4: Perhaps the patient has some slight improvements. In which case, they will start the merry-go-round of medication. Or the patient stabilizes and will be on these medications for the rest of their life (complete with side effects).
Notice that nowhere in this story is anyone looking for a root cause. There are plenty of clues to the cause: digestion, sleep, and probably other symptoms if only the doctor had dug in to find out.
The truth is the patient doesn't need a pill; they need a program
Anyone with depression and/or anxiety has many interrelated health issues that have resulted in their symptoms. There is no "silver bullet" single treatment that will solve the problem. As I pointed out above, there isn't a combination of therapy and drugs that will solve it, either.
What is needed is an integrated program including: ...READ ENTIRE ARTICLE HERE
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