Posts Tagged ‘Depression’

Fibromyalgia patients need more than pharmaceuticals. What is needed is a solution, and the only way to find it means knowing the cause. If there ever was a condition crying our for a natural solution this is it.

Fibromyalgia

Fibromyalgia is a condition that has a profound impact on one’s life. The range of symptoms are so great than everyday living becomes a chore. From constant pain, interrupted sleep, fatigue, sore muscles, headaches, irritable bowel, anxiety and depression the condition is takes away any feeling of well being.

The fact that this is diagnosed in females aged 20 to 50 years of age doesn’t help. Until the pharmaceutical companies found a drug for this condition, most doctors thought of it as either a psychological problem or an imagined one. Now, it has an official diagnosis, which requires that there are a certain number of designated tender points that are extremely sensitive to pressure induced pain.

Pharmaceutical Solution

Pharmaceutical solutions can be anything from antidepressants, painkillers and anticonvulsants. Lyrica is an anticonvulsant and the first medication approved by the FDA  specifically for fibromyalgia. The list of medications for this condition has become quite long. Cymbalta and Effexor Cymbalta and antidepressant approved by the FDA to treat fibromyalgia pain, Paxil and Zoloft for sleep, wellbeing and pain relief. Elavil and other trycyclin antidepressants are often prescribed. This has side effects such as weight gain, dizziness and fatigue.

With all these drugs complete relief from the pain isn’t always possible. That is why the natural route seems a good way to find a solution.

Natural Approach

There are ways to restore normal function. Emerging evidence is being to see fibromyalgia as a metabolic condition. One of the areas being look at is how this condition is tied to low thyroid function. The evidence is pointing in that direction. Right off the bat there can are some overlapping symptoms that makes this well worth looking into. More women that men suffer from both hypothyroidism and fibromayalgia. The fibromyalgia symptoms are usually more severe, but they both create havoc in the patients life. From fatigue, depression, digestive issue and muscle weakness both conditions are debilitating.

Vitamin D Deficiency

There is a link between fibromyalgia and vitamin D deficiency. Muscular pain and weakness can be a sign of a vitamin D deficiency. What studies show is that Fibromyalgia sufferers have deficiencies of calcium and serotonin. These contribute to the depression, since vitamin D helps create serotonin, the feel good hormone, this vitamin is extremely important. Serotonin helps you sleep better, and reduces grain fog, depression and anxiety.

Vitamin D helps your body absorb calcium, which helps your muscles relax. The Mayo Clinic has identified a relationship between low levels of vitamin D and chronic pain.

Ribose Supplementation

D-Ribose is a 5-carbon sugar (unlike 6-carbon glucose sugar), directly involved in the production of “ATP”. The body uses this sugar for energy production. Many patients that supplement with D-Ribrose have experience significant improvement. This is especially true in muscle strength. Patient’s with fibro reach the anaerobic threshold in their muscles earlier. Their muscles get tired faster and are using less of the available energy. Ribrose increases the muscles energy pool which reduces the metabolic strain in affected muscles. This allows the patient to resume activities that tired them out before.

Restoring Health

The way to restore your health naturally, means seeing that you aren’t deficient in either nutrients or hormones. Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) is a powerful antioxidant, which helps restore energy in the form of adenosine triphospate (ATP). This is deficient in people with fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome.

Physical activity provides some pain relief along with improved sleep. There are many people that see benefits of a diet consisting of vegetable juicing, fruits, seeds, and barley grass juice. A whole food diet is essential to healing.

The one modality I don’t want to leave out is Upper Cervical Chiropractic Care. Many patients were able to resume their full activities after treatment.

Depression can be stopped in its tracks. Pharmaceuticals aren’t the only or best way to reduce depression. Administrating drugs for what many times is a lifestyle condition is the wrong approach. High potency drugs can cause more problems then they solve. The numbers and variety of legal drugs are increasingly suspected of causing this problem. Some common drugs that are known to cause depression are: barbiturates, amphetamines, pain killers, beta-blockers, high blood pressure medications, heart medications and psychotropic drugs.

Depression Solutions

A good diet has many benefits that help with mood disorders, ADHD, cognitive function, and depression. The biggest barrier to brain health is a poor diet. After decades of of looking at mental disorders as separate from overall health, the tide is turning. There is a relationship between what you eat, how much you exercise, and what you think.

Essential Fatty Acids

Two-thirds of the brain is composed of specific kinds of fats. The two kinds of fatty acids that your body can’t manufacture and needs from food sources are the ones the brain depends on. These are the essential fatty acids (EPAs): Alpha-linolenic acid (ALA) the foundation of the ”omega-3″ group of fatty acids, and Liolic acid (LA) the foundation of the “omega-6″ group of fatty acids.

These are the building blocks of brain cells. Food sources of Omega-3 (ALA) are flax seeds, chia seeds, walnuts, sea vegetables, green leafy vegetables, salmon, sardines, mackerel, trout, olive oil, grass fed beef and dairy. Linolic acid (LA) is found in expelled cold pressed oils, like sesame, primrose, flax, and others. The other sources are pumpkin seeds, avocados, poultry, cashews, acai berry, and spirulina. Many of the foods that have omega 3 contain Linoleic acid.

The brain makes docosehexaenoic acid (DHA) from (ALA) and (LA). Scientist at the National Institutes of Health has associated the increase in depression in North America with the decline of DHA. This is the most important fat for all cognitive functions.

B Vitamins

The B-complex vitamins are essential to both mental and emotional health. The B vitamins can’t be stored they depend on our daily consumption of them. They are destroyed by alcohol, refined sugar, nicotine, caffeine, and stress.

Vitamin B1 (thiamine) is used by the brain to help convert glucose into fuel, it is the primary source of energy for the brain. Deficiencies can lead to fatigue, depression, irritability anxiety, and insomnia. Simple carbohydrates such as sugar drains the supply of all B complex vitamins.

Vitamin B5 (pantothenic acid) aids is the processing of amino acids. the building blogs of serotonin, melatonin and dopamine. These are know as the happy hormones.

Vitamin  B12 is important in preventing Anemia, which can cause mood swings, paranoia, irritability, confusion, dementia, and depression.. Folic Acid is need for DNA sysnthesis.

Lifestyle 

With our modern lifestyle many people shouldn’t be a stranger to depression. Depression is more than genetics. This condition is more than minor worries; it is the collapse of our agriculture system. The quality of our food supply is dismal. As our nutritional foundation is giving way our mental illnesses will sky rocket. Just by looking at the rates of autism, autism spectrum disorder, ADHD, and bi-polar disorders you can see the hair-curling trend. This is unprecedented and is setting the stage for a boon in prescription medications.

Moderate to severely depressed clients showed greater improvement in cognitive therapy when therapists emphasized changing how they think rather than how they behave.

Creating Good Thoughts

To create good thoughts means looking for the beauty and positive aspect of everyday life. Facing life in a way that gives you control means extracting what you want to focus on. It means being aware how your thoughts set up your reality.

Two people win a 20 thousand dollar lottery, one laments if he just had one more number he would be set for life. The other person realizes how fortune he was to come into this windfall.

Of course the winner for life is the person who enjoys what he received. You either trade down or you trade up in life. The choice is yours.

Create Your World

What has been found was that a concentration on changing behavior of patients by having them schedule activities to get them out and about, did not significantly predict subsequent change in depression symptoms.

The research suggests that cognitive strategies are what will help patients improve. Scientific research has found that perception, expectations, values, attitudes of both self and others will affect behavior.

When a person is depressed they will focus on minor negative aspects of an everyday experience. When small things seem go wrong the depressed person will see the whole experience as negative.

Creating your world starts with self talk. That is the dialog you have with yourself. The longest conversation is the one you have with yourself. Self-talk is the things we say to ourselves all day long.

Automatic Thoughts

Automatic thoughts are repetitive, statements that we say to ourselves.

Again they can be positive or negative. They are called automatic, because they are thoughts that we always say no matter what the evidence is. It is presumptions that don’t weigh any contradictions to the emotional response to people and situations.

Irrational Thoughts

Irrational thoughts are ideas that are based on false assumptions. These are usually unrealistic, and incorrect. Fundamentally they make no sense, and are illogical. These can take you the brink and are the profile of many maladaptive responses to the world. Thoughts that put conditions on your ability to be joyful are usually irrational.

These are I can’t be happy unless I either loss weight, get into my bikini, win the lottery, and please a boss, husband, friend, or relative. These aren’t what your happiness depends on.

Neither does getting into a bikini or winning the lottery guarantee happiness. Many lottery winners can attest to that fact. These ideas aren’t conductive to any long lasting future happiness.

Instrumental Thoughts

The good part is many of these beliefs are not etched in stone. It takes intuitive work to develop a correct thought pattern. Awareness is something that is needed.

Instrumental thoughts are ones that supply you with sheer delight. They become effortless if you make it a point to entertain them.

Learning the right and empowering way of thinking has a profound change on your self view.

The world you live in is inside your mind. You create your thoughts, and you should be the master of them. If not then the thoughts are your master, and that may not be the best program to go though life with. If you have been previously programmed, then you may be going through life with other people’s voices leading the way.