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Monday, November 9, 2009

Physical Symptoms of Depression


By Alex Mayor

Feeling sad is something we will all experience once in a while in our lives. However some people feel sad on a daily base. They are not able to cope with their lives and will eventually become depressed. Sadness and hopelessness are two feelings associated with depression. But next to emotional symptoms depression also has physical symptoms.

Giving someone a diagnosis of depression is not as simple as it sounds. The D.S.M. IV states some clear guidelines but in reality everything is different than written in books. The contradiction to this matter is that some people say they feel depressed but they do not qualify for a depression diagnosis. Other people do not think they are depressed and just feel sad, but these people sometimes qualify for a diagnosis of depression. Therefore it is extremely important to not only look at the emotional symptoms, but also on the physical symptoms of depression.

The most important physical symptoms are a changing eating and sleeping pattern. When you are depressed you could have problems falling a sleep, or having problems staying awake. With eating this is the same; you could eat to little and do not feel hungry or you could eat much more than normal.

Next to these fatigue is also a very important sign. When you are depressed you do not have the energy to do anything. First it is because you do not feel like it but soon enough you actually do not have the energy to accomplish anything.

Pain is another sensation that is frequently seen. Chronic headaches is one of the symptoms highly associated with depression, another one is general body pain. Everything in your body hurts and there is not a physical reason for it. That is why many doctors will refer these patients to a psychologist and see if there is a mental illness causing these symptoms.

This article gave a short introduction to the complexity of manic depressive disorder. If you are interested in this subject than you can read more about the physical symptoms depression at my website about (manic) depression.

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