What are the symptoms of depression?
The feelings associated with depression don’t coincide with typical, occasional sadness, where the source of the feeling can be traced. These feelings persist and interfere with your everyday activities.
The most common symptoms include:
- Feeling hopeless
- Disinterest in favorite activities
- Changing eating habits
- Oversleeping or insomnia
- Exhaustion
- Thoughts of death or suicide
How is depression diagnosed?
Because there are no laboratory tests to diagnose depression, Dr. Ryan Williams uses blood tests to rule out other conditions that contribute to your bad mood.
Some medications and illnesses, including viral infections, thyroid disorders, and significant hormonal changes, cause symptoms similar to depression.
If Dr. Williams finds no other cause for your symptoms, he asks in-depth questions about your feelings, actions, and day-to-day activities, as well as about your family’s psychological history. These questions help Dr. Williams determine the type of depression affecting you.
What are the different types of depression?
The most common types of depression include:
- Anxious distress: Anxious distress causes heightened concern about potential events or complete loss of control.
- Mixed features: Mixed features is a combination of depression and mania and often includes increased self-esteem. Those with mixed features tend to talk too much and have increased energy.
- Melancholic features: Melancholic features is severe depression that includes a lack of response to that which used to bring pleasure. Those diagnosed with melancholic features have issues getting up in the morning, appetite changes, and feelings of guilt, agitation, or sluggishness.
- Atypical features: Those with atypical features get temporarily cheered by happy events. Additional traits include increased appetite, excessive need for sleep, and rejection sensitivity, as well as a heavy feeling in the arms or legs.
- Psychotic features: Those with psychotic features have depression that’s accompanied by delusions or hallucinations.
- Catatonia: Catatonia causes you to suffer from either uncontrollable or purposeless movement or fixed and inflexible posture.
- Postpartum: Postpartum depression occurs either towards the end of pregnancy or in the weeks or months immediately after delivery.
- Seasonal pattern: If you have seasonal pattern depression, your affliction changes according to the seasons and reduced exposure to sunlight.
How is depression treated?
Depression is most commonly treated through medication and psychotherapy. Dr. Williams prescribes medications to help relieve your symptoms and recommends you see a psychiatrist, psychologist, or other mental health professional.
Medications for depression typically have side effects that are worth considering, which is why Dr. Williams only prescribes medications you need.
Make sure you see Dr. Williams — a skilled diagnostician — so you can be fully informed and make the best decision about medication for your circumstances.
If you haven’t felt like yourself in a while and think it could be depression, call or make an appointment online today at Florence Family Medicine in Florence, South Carolina.
