Depression and Homeopathy

This is a broad topic for one blog entry, along with all mental illness, so I will span it out.

Homeopaths are more interested in symptoms of a condition you are feeling, and less on the name of the condition.  We want to see which symptoms have manifested, and the more unique they are, the more it describes you as an individual.  Everyone gets stressed, our job is to find out WHAT stresses you out, and HOW your body responds to stress. Depression is a difficult thing to treat, since it doesn't have an explicable pattern at which it occurs.  It is not considered a very dynamic disease.  It's just always there.  The best thing to do, if possible, is notice what makes it better or worse.  For example:

• Time of day - worse first thing in the morning when you wake up, or worse before going to bed and you can't sleep.  
• Does it help if you're alone, or around people?  
• Do you get emotional or keep it in?  
• What triggers it, any specific thought?  
• When did it start? 
• Are you on anti-depressants?  

It is a good idea to go to a professional regularly so they have your full case and know any other issues (physical or mental) occurring in your body also.  This way other issues can be treated, and you can be strengthened as a whole, which should help with the depression.  Physical conditions can cause mental symptoms and vice versa.

Here are a few examples of Homeopathic remedies used to treat characteristic symptoms associated with depression, specific to the patient's case:

1. Sepia - Could be used for Post-partum Depression.  Patient wants to be left alone, cries a lot.  Exercise helps with the depression (biologically speaking, exercise will always help with endorphins).  Worse in the evening.  Craves chocolate (who doesn't though)
2. Pulsatilla - It helps the patient to be around people.  Depression is worst first thing in the morning.  Patient sleeps a lot, is very moody (happy, sad extremes). The Pulsatilla digestive system is sensitive.  Patient is thirst less. 
3. Natrum Muriaticum - patient is sad with unresolved grief to due death or loss of a loved one.  These patients usually keep their emotions in, and cry when they are alone.  Headaches or migraines could be an associated symptom.  Loss of appetite when stressed.

There are lot of symptoms treated by each of these remedies, and many more remedies that treat symptoms associated with depression.  It's always helpful to tell everything to a homeopath, so they can figure out which way to best balance your immune system.

You may find that a patient gets physical symptoms as manifestations of their mental/emotional state.  For example, there was a case of a little girl who wet her bed every time she heard her parents arguing.  You wouldn't necessarily call this depression, but it made her sad, and her body reacted with a physical symptom.  The correct homeopathic remedy will target the entire imbalance of the body, physical and mental/emotional.