A case of depression

Depression

Clinical depression is also known as major depression and unipolar depression, is a very serious problem which affects more than 120 million people all around the world every year according to the World Health Organization (WHO). It affects men, women, children, adolescents and the elderly.

The official definition of clinical depression is based upon the following eight primary criteria:

" Poor appetite with weight loss or increased appetite with weight gain.

" Insomnia or hypersomnia.

" Physical hyperactivity or inactivity.

" Loss of interest or pleasure in usual activities, or decrease in sexual drive.

" Loss of energy and feelings of fatigue.

" Feelings of worthlessness, self-reproach or inappropriate guilt.

" Diminished ability to think or concentrate.

" Recurrent thoughts of death or suicide.

Usually the presence of five of these eight points definitely indicates depression anyway; an individual suffering from four of these symptoms is probably also depressed.

There have been developed several theories trying to explain the cause of depression of which two are the most popular; first the biopsychosocial model which states that the cause of depression is based on biological, psychological and social causes; secondly the diathesis-stress model which states that people with clinical depression have a pre-existing vulnerability, either genetic or schematic, that has been triggered by a stressful life event.

There have been described three types of depression:

1)      Major depression which is characterized by the eight points that we already discussed with a particular loss of interest or pleasure in participating in activities that they used to find enjoyable.

2)      Dysthemia which is a less severe episode than major depressionand is characterized by a chronic low-mood mental status.

3)      Bipolar disorder in which cycling periods of extreme highs and extreme lows are experienced. When they are in a depressive state, they show symptoms of major depression; when they are in a maniac state, they will have increased amounts of energy and they will exhibit judgment and clarity of thoughts.

Case

With this case I want to highlight the efficacy that a homeopathic treatment can demonstrate when we talk about mental or emotional disorders.

One day a very humble-looking lady came to my office, she was dressing old clothes with some patches overlapped all over her skirt; it seemed that she had not had a shower in days, the smell was bad and her general appearance was that of a person who does not care about herself.

When she came to my office she was short of breath with a very heavy productive cough. She was diagnosed many years ago of having asthma and she was taking the normal medication (salbutamol) for the acute cases and some steroids (prednisolone) for the chronic state. But as you can see there was no improvement on her condition.

I started taking the case and as she was answering my questions I was realizing that something much more important than the asthma was her depression; she was saying that she was very sad at home because her husband usually abused of her, that nobody at home showed any kind of respect for her, not even her three children.

Her environment was not the best, she was living in a very small unit with just one room where she, her husband, her three children and her parents in law were sharing.

She was doing all the cleaning, cooking, washing and taking care of everything at home not receiving as a reward anything but just abuse.

Then living on that kind of environment with all the stress and work that she was doing, it is normal that she was not controlling her asthma very well, but the main problem was all the emotional symptoms that she was developing.

First of all she was losing a lot of weight because she was not eating as normally because of a lack of appetite, she told me that she lost around 7 kilos in the last 2 weeks; she was having problems going to sleep, not falling asleep until 2 or 3 am and waking up always around 4 or 5am; she was pushing herself to do all her duties at home just because she was afraid of her husband.

She told me that anything that she used to enjoy in the past was not any more enjoyable for her; she was always feeling tired with no force to even go to the toilet.

All the time during that consultation she was blaming herself for what was happening on her life, she never blamed her husband or her children or her parents-in-law, she was carrying with all the blame saying that it was her fault if something was missing at home, if she was unable to finish cleaning, if her husband was upset etc, and the problem was that she was really convinced of that.

And finally she was unable to get concentrated when she was trying to perform a task at home, therefore she was committing some mistakes like dropping glasses etc. finally she was having recurrent and persistent thoughts of death, she never tried to kill herself but she was thinking all the time about her death and different way in which she could terminate with her life

As you can see she was having eight out of eight basic symptoms for clinical depression to be diagnosed, but her doctor (conventional medicine) was more preoccupied for her asthmatic symptoms rather than her emotional state.  Having said that, her asthma was just a consequence of her depression.

The patient was then treated with a very high dose of Aurum metallicum and two weeks later she came back looking much different, she was clean and she actually used some makeup, her face was showing a smile that was not shown the first consultation and she was not blaming herself about what was happening on her life, she was more interested in doing many other things.

With just a single dose of Aurum metallicum the improvement was marked and her asthma was much better, she told me that the day after the first consultation she started having a lot of mucus running from her nose and mouth, but she also told me that after the medication even though she was having more physical symptoms, she was feeling much better emotionally straight away.

This is a very important case in which we have highlight the importance of giving the right medication for the right symptoms and not get distracted with symptoms that could be dramatic but not as important as the emotional once.