For the more than 8% of adults in the United States who are affected by depression, the world can seem like a stark and lonely place. If you figure among these numbers, you may think there’s little cause for hope, but we want to assure you that there’s light at the end of this dark tunnel.
At Prime Psychiatry, our team of mental health experts has considerable experience in the area of depression, and we’ve helped many patients break the chains of this mood disorder, allowing them to find happiness, purpose, and meaning in life again.
To give you some hope, here’s a look at some encouraging facts about depression.
The many faces of depression
Mental health disorders can be difficult to pin down because there’s no single test that can confirm whether one is present. That being said, our understanding of depression and the myriad ways it can affect someone has expanded, which allows us to better identify when there’s a problem.
By honing our diagnostic criteria and taking into account that symptoms can manifest themselves in a wide range of ways, we can take action more quickly and more effectively than ever before.
For example, depression can be seasonal, situational (postpartum depression), subtle, or downright debilitating. While depression may be a disorder of the brain, it can also have physical side effects, which we recognize more readily now.
Our point here is that, thanks to an abundance of research and experience, depression is far less of an enigma.
An increasing awareness
Not all that long ago, depression and other mental health disorders were often hidden due to stigmas born of ignorance. In recent years, however, depression has been brought into the spotlight and people feel far more comfortable acknowledging and seeking treatment for the issue.
Better treatments
The introduction of antidepressants during the 1970s and 1980s was a game-changer for this mental health disorder and helped millions of people to gain the upper hand on their depression.
Equally as important as the antidepressant successes were the failures, which allowed us to gain improved insight into brain chemistry and how to influence it in a way that can better regulate your moods.
As a result, we now have a wider range of medications that we can combine to help break the depression cycle by altering neurotransmitters for improved mood regulation.
Beyond medications
With an improved understanding of brain function and depression, we also offer treatments that don’t rely on medications. A great example of this is transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), which is a technique that applies magnetic fields to the areas in your brain that are involved in your depression.
TMS is completely noninvasive and evidence of its efficacy is plentiful. For example, Harvard Medical School reports that 50% to 60% of people with treatment-resistant depression achieved a clinically meaningful response with TMS. More encouraging is the fact that one-third of these individuals had a full remission.
Our own experiences reflect these numbers, and we’ve been able to help our patients who tried medications without success find meaningful relief from their depression with TMS.
If you’d like to learn more about your treatment options for depression, please contact our office in Frisco, Texas, to schedule a consultation.