A friend of mine recently went through an intense breakup, and he has since spiraled into a pretty heavy state of depression. He has told me that facing the winter as a single person terrifies him, and since he feels helpless to do anything about it, he has sunk into depression. From what I can tell, he is starting to show some of the 7 symptoms of depression such as a sullen mood, lack of energy, and loss of appetite. This last one is particularly serious because he also happens to be diabetic. He started to show the signs of depression almost immediately after he and his girlfriend broke up.

This is actually a fairly common cause of depression among men and women. It has been reported that depression rates tend to be higher in the divorced and separated, while lower for people in relationships. This does not mean that folks in relationships can not get depressed; it is just that the data seems to suggest that the number of occurrences is lower. In some cases a person may not know if they are depressed or not, and may submit to a depression test to see if they have any and all of the major symptoms. If they do, then they will usually have some options as to how to treat it. Some folks take drugs, others see a therapist, while others do both.

Men and women experience depression differently. For married men symptoms of depression may begin to show if they feel like they are failing their family. Many men feel that the best way they can have fulfillment is if they can adequately provide for their family. To reverse the situation, it may be that the same man has a full time job, but he hates it. In this case, signs of depression may begin to show because he feels trapped in a place that he abhors, but feels it is his duty to remain in.

For women, there are a variety of factors as well that can lead to depression. Postpartum depression can be major event for a woman to go through. One important thing for any woman to keep in mind is that postpartum depression is not a disorder, and is actually quite natural. There are, of course, cases where the depression is overwhelming for the new mother, and they may choose to seek treatment for it. Another issue that can lead to depression in a woman is when they enter into menopause. This is another case wherein they do not have a disorder, but are going through a natural process for the female body. Read the rest of this entry »

Did you know that the medication solutions for ADHD are in the high risk category? I say that because these medications carry the black box warning and that is only used for about 10% of all the allopathic medicines out there. That is pretty alarming by any standards.

The latest solutions for ADHD as recommended by the AAP do nothing to reassure us either. They are not exactly recommending that all children be put on these meds but they have lengthened the age range. Now that is a contradiction, if ever there was one! They now say that the age range should be from four years of age to eighteen.

We know the shortcomings of these meds and we also know that they do not really resolve the ADHD issues. Let us look at some more valid solutions for ADHD. The ADHD child is actually doing a pretty impressive balancing act when you think about it. Consider the following:

• he or she has to deal with an imbalance in the brain neurotransmitters
• the imbalance means he has difficulties in performing certain tasks
• his diet may exacerbate certain symptoms
• he cannot cope with several things at once due to the faulty brain filters
• his medication will mask some of his symptoms
• he needs life and social skills together with coping strategies
• his distraction levels are high and his focus and attention capacities are scarce.
• impulsivity means that he cannot think of consequences before acting.
• allergies to certain foods may be the cause of his problems and it may not be ADHD at all.

The latter point about allergies and other childhood illnesses is a very valid one, given that it is now estimated that about 20% of all ADHD cases are misdiagnosed.

So what are the solutions for ADHD? We have seen that medication is extremely limited and also carries some risks as evidenced by the black box warnings that I have mentioned above. Read the rest of this entry »