what are depression, antidepressant and their treatment?

Medication:

Some people wonder how the medication should help them with a mental illness like depression, especially if they see stress at work, tensions in a relationship, or another difficult life situation as the cause of the illness. Such problems, which are perceived as magnified in the context of depression, are not eliminated by medication. Successful drug treatment of depression, however, eases the listlessness, hopelessness, and joylessness and the existing problems appear less large and manageable again or part of the often bitter life.

It is very important to consider the possibilities of drug treatment because only if you are convinced of the treatment you will take the antidepressant drug regularly and for a sufficiently long period of time.

antidepressant:

Antidepressants are specifically approved for the treatment of depression. They are an important pillar of treatment and are by far the most commonly used. However, many of those affected are often skeptical about taking medication at first. The following pointers should help you better understand how antidepressants work and why they are an important part of treatment. there are a lot of Psychiatric Treatment Center in Lahore.

The most important thing about antidepressants

Antidepressants are not addicting.
Antidepressants are not stimulants or sedatives and do not get you "high ".
Antidepressants belong to the group of psychotropic drugs (drugs that are used to treat mental illness).
There are also two other groups of psychotropic drugs, but their effects differ significantly from the effects of antidepressants:

Antipsychotics/neuroleptics for the treatment of schizophrenic diseases and delusional depression.
Anxiolytics/hypnotics (sedatives/sleeping pills), for example for the treatment of anxiety and sleep disorders.

How do antidepressants work in the brain?

In the depressive illness phase, numerous functions in the brain are changed. Here, messenger substances in the brain, which among other things enable communication between different nerve cells, play an important role. The messenger substances serotonin and norepinephrine are regarded as important for the development and maintenance of depression. Antidepressants influence the mode of action of these messenger substances and could thus correct any malfunctions.

How can antidepressants influence the effect of these messenger substances? In a healthy state, some of the messenger substances released by the nerve cell are returned to the nerve cell from the synaptic gap pumped. When taking most antidepressants, this pump is blocked and the return transport of the messenger substances is reduced. The result is that more messenger substances are in the synaptic gap and their effect is increased. This is the mechanism of action of numerous antidepressants (tri- or tetracyclic, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI)). So-called monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAO inhibitors), on the other hand, work within the nerve cell by blocking a protein (enzyme) that is responsible for the breakdown of serotonin and noradrenaline in the nerve cell. This means that there are also more messenger substances that are released into the synaptic cleft.

Whether antidepressants are useful should be discussed with the attending physician. The decision for or against treatment with antidepressants depends, among other things, on the severity of the depression, but also on the patient's preferences. In the case of mild depression, antidepressants can be avoided for the time being. If the depression does not improve despite other treatment attempts, or if there has been more severe depression before, then treatment with antidepressants can also be attempted for mild depression. In the very mild but chronic form of depression, dysthymia, the effectiveness of antidepressants has been well documented.

Antidepressants do not work like pain killers or sleeping pills immediately after ingestion. As a rule, a decrease in depressive symptoms only becomes apparent after about one to two weeks of daily use. Antidepressants must not be discontinued immediately when they improve! It is important to keep taking antidepressants even if there is a significant improvement. Premature termination of drug therapy is associated with a high risk that the depression will come back, similar to the way that blood pressure often worsens again when stopping a blood pressure drug. To relapse in the long term avoid this, the antidepressants should continue to be taken in the same dosage for about six months after the depression has subsided. If the depression is very severe and there have already been several phases of depressive illness, it is often advisable to take medication for years to prevent relapse.