What is Depression?
Depression is one of the most common mental disorders in the United States most commonly present amongst teenagers and young adults although it is …show more content…
seen in adults who are more up in age. Depression is a medical mood illness where the individual feels helpless and hopeless most of the time due to life situations or everyday struggles. Depression causes feelings that will have person who’s affected feeling, thinking, and handling simple activities ( eating, sleeping, working, operating a vehicle, etc) that will seem easy for the average person differently.
The symptoms of depression aren’t simple to recognize. It can seem like someone is just feeling a little bit under the weather for a period of time and are actually suffering from depression. The wide range of symptoms are nausea, increased appetite and weight gain, loss of sexual desire and other sexual problems, such as erectile dysfunction and decreased orgasm, fatigue and drowsiness, Insomnia, dry mouth,blurred vision, and constipation.
What is the history of antidepressant medication? Antidepressants were first founded in 1950, but the discovery wasn’t on purpose but instead on accident. In 1950,scientific medical researchers of the Munsterlingen asylum in Switzerland discovered antidepressants when looking for an advanced treatment of schizophrenia. The Switzerland team discovered that once they tweak the drug with perfect balance of brain's neurotransmitters, the chemicals that control mood, pain and other sensation, it was the perfect treatment to calm the symptoms of depression , but terrible for a cure of schizophrenia which is what they were looking for originally. After a couple years of trying to perfect the balance of all the chemicals, in 1955 when it was finally tested the patients reported that they found themselves feeling more friendly, sociable, energetic, and motivated to get up and carry out every day life with no problem. Some patients even referred to the drug as a ‘miracle life saving cure’. The drug was then named imipramine and put on the market for the public use in 1958, but was quickly overridden by similar drugs as the pharmacy market grew and the drug companies rushed to capitalize on the new burgeoning market which led to the wide range of antidepressants that are available in the pharmacy market today.
What are the pro’s and con’s of antidepressants?
The pros of taking an antidepressant drug is the feeling of being less depressed. When someone takes an antidepressant they generally feel better and are able to move on with their life instead of feeling like they are in a black hole not being able to do anything in life or be anything in life. Taking the antidepressants help to correct level in the body, patients often experience improved mood, improved levels of functioning and a reduction in the number of physical symptoms that they would experience if they weren’t taking the medication. The cons of antidepressants are the side effects. The side effects for most antidepressant medications are generally the same because most antidepressants have the same chemical equations because they are trying to cure the same thing. The side effects of antidepressants are nausea feelings, actually vomiting, spells of dizziness, headache, irritability, having sleep disturbances , nightmares, psychosis, and maybe even
seizures.
Expert opinions on antidepressants. ( “Tricyclic antidepressants were the first antidepressants approved for use,” says Dr. Danny Carlat, M.D., associate clinical professor of psychiatry at Tufts University School of Medicine. “They are sometimes used after selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) haven’t worked. They can, however, cause some side effects that can be really worrisome if you don’t monitor for them.” http://www.healthline.com/ George Krucik, MD, MD on December 10, 2013)