One in five American’s will deal with depression at some point in their life. Knowing how to treat depression can prepare you to help yourself or your friends and family.
Is a Psychiatrist the Best Way to Begin Treating My Depression?
Whether you are an adult preparing to see a psychiatrist, or a parent looking to consult a child and adolescent psychiatrist to help your kids, psychiatric providers are a fantastic resource with both knowledge and skills that surpass most other clinicians. Psychiatrists and psychiatric nurse practitioners have extensive and specialized knowledge and skills when it comes to treating depression. Although most family doctors see plenty of depression week to week, their knowledge and training is not as extensive as a specialist. Psychiatrists will start with a very thorough intake interview designed to go beyond simple symptoms checklists. They will be exploring underlying drivers for depression and exploring physiological factors that could be causing depression, such as diabetes, unregulated thyroid disorder, substance abuse, or a variety of other possible causes. They will discuss environmental stressors that could also be contributing to depression to better determine if some adjunctive counseling or therapy may be instrumental at resolving both the life stressors and the resulting depression.
How Will My Psychiatrist Treat My Depression?
Psychiatric nurse practitioners and psychiatrists have a variety of treatment options for the treatment of depression. Typically, the first line of treatment comes in the form of antidepressant medications. Research and scientific findings have revealed that people with depression have reduced levels of serotonin and norepinephrine in the system. The reductions on these vital neurotransmitters have been shown to dramatically affect depression levels. Accordingly, re-establishing appropriate levels is vitally important in achieving symptom relief of depression. Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRI’s) are designed to promote a greater amount of serotonin in the brain which reduces symptoms of depression. Psychiatrists have worked with dozens of antidepressant medications and are skilled at finding the right medication and augmenting it to increase effectiveness. GeneSight Testing is yet another way to analyze your DNA to determine which psychiatric medications will work most effectively with your chemistry and can reduce the difficult trial and error process of the past. For those who have what is known as treatment resistant depression, psychiatrists have ways to augment medications to make them more effective or can draw upon other approaches when medications are not proving to be effective. Psychiatrists bring a level of skill that is great at achieving desired outcomes.
If you are interested in meeting with our child and adolescent psychiatric provider, or one of our adult psychiatric providers, feel free to contact IPC so you can schedule an appointment to help you complete an assessment, obtain a diagnosis and discuss treatment options. Please call us now at 763-416-4167, or request an appointment on our website: WWW.IPC-MN.COM so we can sit down with you and complete a thorough assessment and help you develop a plan of action that will work for you. Life is too short to be unhappy. Find the peace of mind you deserve.
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