What Is The Cause And Treatment For Depression?

Posted on Fri, 4 Apr 2014

Question: Hi Doctor My father is 72 years of age. He is a daibetes, hypertension & Hyperthyroidism patient. He was a very active person and can walk any distant at this age. But, for the past 2-3 months he has lost atleast 7 KGs. He has become weak. He thinks a lot and worries a lot. Does not involve in any activities and only either sit in one place or try to sleep. He is not getting enough sleep for almost 2months. Most of the time he makes a burping sound ( like "Ahhma" as if something is coming from his stomach ) and you can see his body shaking and shivering violently. He is very depressed. He do not listen to what we say and seems not in this world. All this happened suddenly. We have no idea what has gone wrong. The doctor we visited says he is having high anxiety and prescribed DEANXIT, Nexito Frote, Restly, Pacitane. Please help us to diagnose what is going wrong with him.

Answered by Dr. Srikanth Reddy (49 minutes later)

Brief Answer: Depression vs parkinsons Detailed Answer: Hello, Thanks for choosing health care magic for posting your query. I have gone through your question in detail and I can understand what you are going through. The symptoms that you have suggested all state that you father could be having a depressive episode. It occurs due to some imbalance in the neurotransmitters in the brain. Probably your doctor also feels the same. The medications that he is on are the right drugs. He needs to stay on them for atleast 4 weeks and then needs to be judged. If the symptoms do not improve then the antidepressants have to be changed. Mirtazapine, venlafaxine, fluoxetine etc are certain other options which can be tried. Further the symptom of tremors and shakes that you have stated are not the symptoms or depression. There is a possibility that you father might have started on the early phases of parkinsons disease. Your doctor probably feels so as well and that is the reason that he has given pacitane to your father. Parkinsons many times has depression as a comorbidity. Other good and better drugs for parkinsons disease is syndopa. Hope I am able to answer your concerns. If you have any further query, I would be glad to help you. If not, you may close the discussion and if possible you may rate the answer for me, so that I get a good feedback. In future if you wish to contact me directly, you can use the below mentioned link: bit.ly/dr-srikanth-reddy Wish you good health, Kind regards Dr. Srikanth Reddy M.D.

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar

Follow up: Dr. Srikanth Reddy (8 minutes later)

will parkinson's symptom include the burping sound also ? When he makes that sound you can see his stomach and chest shaking. It seems he can control it if he prefers but if he does that his anxiety and shivering increases and he prefers to make the sound rather than control it.

Answered by Dr. Srikanth Reddy (7 hours later)

Brief Answer: Its acidity Detailed Answer: Hello Sorry for missing out on the symptom of burping. At this age chronic gastritis is very common and continuous burping is a common symptom of this illness. He neds Tab Rabeprazole 20mg daily empty stomach for his burping. IT will get controlled and the medicines will have to be taken daily for a few months. Let him not control his burping. If he wants to let him do it. Regards Dr. Srikanth Reddy

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Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar