Is Cymbalta Right for Me?
Dr. Bojrab's Story
What Is Depression?
Chris Bojrab, MD
The first thing I usually tell patients about depression is that it's a brain illness. It's a real medical condition.
So often patients really beat themselves up about feeling depressed. It feels like something they should be able to get over. It feels like something that if they were stronger or better or worked harder, it wouldn't be a problem.
Mary
Somewhere inside of me, I thought that I could just get myself through this if I just, you know, stayed focused and just worked hard enough, which is a little bit contradictory because logically I know that if you have a headache, you do what? You take an aspirin. But I just, for some reason, couldn't process it in that way.
Dr. Bojrab
I think it really helps people understand the nature of depression when they start to think about it like any other medical condition.
Some people develop depressive symptoms because of genetic reasons. There are other people that become depressed because of things that happen to them over the course of their life but ultimately when patients experience these symptoms it's a reflection of what's going on chemically in the brain.
How Is Depression Diagnosed?
Dr. Bojrab
There are a number of things that we talk to patients about when they come in for an evaluation for depression. One of the things I like to focus on is the way in which depression has changed their lives.
Those changes can creep up on us so slowly and when you live a certain way, feeling a certain way for so long, um, you sort of come to almost think that this is how I must always be or this is how I'm supposed to be. I think that really speaks to the way in which depression really touches every aspect of a person's life.
When talking to patients about depressive symptoms, typically I'll ask them, do you feel sad and how persistently do you feel sad? I ask them about their level of energy and their level of anxiety. I ask them how they're sleeping.
And most importantly, I ask them do you still enjoy doing the things that you normally enjoy doing? I think that people really don't realize all the ways that depression can make them feel bad.
And I think that's why it's really critically important to ask them no- not only about symptoms of sadness and anxiety and suicidal thought, but to also ask them about aches and pains, ask them about their energy level throughout the day, uh, because so often, patients don't recognize that these symptoms are commonly seen as part of depression.
