Depression Hits Likely On Menopausal Stage

December 6th, 2009 Posted in Depression

Depression therapy for menopausal and peri-menopausal women can either be very useful, or in certain cases it might turn out to be somewhat misguided. This is because of a few misconceptions that have made the rounds for many years about what actually happens during this time in a woman’s life. Menopause treatment is not at all the same thing as treatment for depression. Most mood fluctuations during this time simply relate to hormone changes, and may be managed with diet or hormone therapy, except in severe cases. This means that the drug products that work for depression, while they may bring some relief to menopausal women, might not address the real causes of depressive symptoms.

One of the facts that any menopause treatment has to take into account is that estrogen tends to be a factor in mood enhancement, while progesterone is more of a mood de-stabilizer. Current treatments for the symptoms that accompany the transition into menopause usually involve hormone replacement therapy (HRT). And yet if the woman has had post partum depression treatment in the past, or has a history of depressive episodes, then HRT can actually worsen the risk of menopause-related depression.

That would mean that such women might consider seeking alternative treatments to alleviate menopausal symptoms, to try to avoid increasing their depression risk even further. And while there are vitamins and supplements that can help, sometimes the best treatments will simply be to exercise and eat properly. Making sure they eat a diet containing plenty of natural estrogens may improve a woman’s mood just as well as drugs, in many cases. A few examples of these foods would be lentils, beans, apples, broccoli, beets, tomatoes, squash and olives. And there are many more. All of this is part of the natural treatment of menopause in general, but depressive symptoms that go along with menopause are as likely to be relieved as other symptoms.

Sometimes women really do need HRT as part of their menopause treatment, even if it might possibly raise the risk of depression. In such cases, rather than make them suffer, the usual methods of depression therapy should be instituted. These would include antidepressant prescriptions to counterbalance possible depressive effects of the hormone treatments. Whatever it takes to make a woman’s transition into menopause as normal as possible, including all available health treatments, need to be explored.

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