Toronto-Centre Naturopathic Medicine is a Toronto naturopathic clinic dedicated to providing safe and effective treatment of a wide variety of health conditions using natural therapies and the principles of naturopathic medicine.
Depression is well treated using naturopathic medicine. Depression is not used to describe temporary feelings of sadness, and is not a sign of weakness or a condition you can “snap out of”. Depression is a chronic illness that profoundly affects quality of life. Untreated, depression can lead to anxiety, alcohol and substance abuse, heart disease, poor work or school performance and relationship difficulties. Professional healthcare should be sought out if you have daily depression symptoms for more than two weeks.
Seek emergency medical care if:
- You are having suicidal thoughts
Symptoms of depression
Possible symptoms of depression include:
- Feelings of sadness, worthlessness or hopelessness
- Loss of interest in normal daily activities
- Loss of interest in sex
- Poor concentration
- Indecisiveness
- Irritability
- Restlessness
- Insomnia
- Unintentional weight gain or loss
- Fatigue or weakness
- Loss of interest in normal daily activities
- Suicidal thoughts
Depression treatment at Toronto-Centre Naturopathic Medicine
At Toronto-Centre Naturopathic Medicine, the goals of treatment for depression are to improve mood, reduce other depression symptoms, manage side effects of conventional depression medications and determine triggers of depression in order to prevent recurrence of depressive episodes.
Conventional treatment for depression may include psychotherapy, and a variety of antidepressant medications which may have short- or long-term side effects. For this reason, you may choose to try natural treatment to possibly avoid use of conventional medications, or together with conventional medications in order to decrease dosages of conventional medications required to manage your depression symptoms.
Naturopathic treatment of any chronic health concern must be recognized as a process that involves identifying specific treatment goals, a thorough understanding by your naturopathic doctor of all factors affecting your health, including physical, psychological, emotional and lifestyle factors, development of a comprehensive treatment plan and execution of that plan through periodic monitoring and adjustment.
At Toronto-Centre Naturopathic Medicine a typical approach to treating depression is to first identify and address underlying factors in your lifestyle (e.g., stress, long-term use of certain medications, substance abuse, general perspective) or general health (e.g., illnesses that have depression as a component, other illnesses that may be adding stress to your life). Where appropriate, a number of therapeutic options are available, to be used alone, or more often in a complementary fashion, including:
- Botanical (herbal) medicines
- Nutritional supplements
- Homeopathic medicines
- Lifestyle counseling
- Relaxation techniques
- Acupuncture
- Exercise prescription
Reference
Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research. Depression (major depression) [Online]. [cited 2009 Feb 18]; Available from: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/depression/DS00175