Posted by bleauberry on February 24, 2009, at 18:55:58
In reply to As a board, can we do anything about this?, posted by Neal on February 23, 2009, at 23:44:16
As a board is there anything we can do about this? I doubt it. Write your legislature, try to get an article in your newspaper, stuff like that.
The bigger problem as I see it is not that depression is under recognized, but that it is not thoroughly investigated before pulling out the prescription pad. Basics would be things like a standard blood test, serum B6, B12, folic acid, vitamin D, complete thyroid analysis (not just TSH), a detailed clinical, lab, and historical review for any indication of Lyme or Lyme-like infection, a look in the patient's mouth to see if there are silver fillings (mercury), inquiring about parents, siblings, great grandparents, etc, for psychiatric history, symptoms of Candida or yeast overgrowth. I mean, there are so many biochemical causes of depression, but the above cover the majority of them. Treatment for the symptoms would still be needed, but even better would be the concurrent treatment for the underlying cause to prevent the problem from progressing.
But yeah, some doctors don't even ask or see it when it is right in front of them. They might just say you aren't sleeping well or you aren't exercising enough or get some rest or something. All worthy comments of course, but meaningless in the face of major depression.
I know I can, so maybe other people too, look apparently ok even when deep in the dumps. I mean, there might be a cover-up thing or an embarrassment thing or a fear thing or whatever that keeps us from being open and honest with the doctor. So maybe it isn't completely their fault. They can only know what we share with them.
poster:bleauberry
thread:882093
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20090223/msgs/882227.html