Another Look at How to Heal Depression without toxic Antidepressants – Vol.303, April 2, 2015
Dr. Mercola wrote a very important article on depression on his website: drmercola.com called How Nutritional and Alternative Treatments Can Help You Avoid Using Drugs for Depression. He wonders whether antidepressants are the best approach to helping the up to 30,000 people who are depressed and commit suicide every year.
Back in May, 2010 Donna, an ex-client and most helpful researcher and writer wrote an excellent article for the Dawning Visions Hypnosis weblog called: Are Your Truly Depressed? It May Be Something Else. In this article she lists 18 different ways one may have some of the symptoms that could fall under the “syndrome” one would call “depression.” Donna calls it a syndrome because it is really your body’s way of telling you that there is something that needs to be attended to, like “pain” is an indicator that there is something in the body that needs to be attended to, it is not an “illness” on its own. You can access Donna’s article here:
http://dawningvisions.com/vol-88-may-2010-are-you-truly-depressed-maybe-something-else-entirely/
Dr. Mercola brings this up because many people including myself, have had horrible side-effects with these very strong psychotropic medications which are being handed out as if they were candy.
In my own case, many years ago I was very depressed and needed some help. Because I showed up as being “depressed” emotionally, because I was, I was placed on the tricyclic antidepressant Desipramine. The only problem with that strategy was that as it turned out, I like many manic depressives (people today known as being Bipolar), cycled up into hypomania (a step below the psychotic event known as “mania” where reality is no longer understood). This happened because anyone with manic depression needs a mood stabilizer, especially if given an antidepressant to stabilize the mood.
Another very horrible side effect I suffered being on lithium for over a decade was the permanent damage to my thumb nails which will never grow in normally again. My hair thinned out as well, and though many years after being taken off the lithium some of it has grown in a bit thicker, it is no where nearly as thick as it once had been. It turned out that my kidneys were “slowing down” demonstrated through a creatinine level test. One can’t live very long without kidneys functioning, so off the lithium I went.
I know from the reading that I have done of James Greenblattbook, M.D’s book The Breakthrough Solution: A Personalized 9-Step Method to Beating the Causes of Your Depression that malnutrition is a very common cause of depression. It is rather simple to understand that if one doesn’t have the basic amino acids – the building blocks necessary for making protein, then one may not be able to produce enough of the neurotransmitters necessary to allow the brain to function normally.
My own book, Wake Up Doctors: 10 Steps to Regain Your Patients Respect and Trust, available for FREE on this website, when one opts-in to receive the upcoming weblogs, podcasts, and events, is based on the very complicated case history of a Donna Novi, co-author of the book and a client of mine who was diagnosed with “depression” when in fact her so-called depression was really due to leaky gut, hormonal imbalances, various infections and food allergies. She is still working to regain her health after a very bad episode with Prozac, given to her for a problem that it really wasn’t meant to help. It is at once a “Wake Up call” to doctors to think and then do the necessary testing for physiological causes, before handing out these toxic pills. This is especially true given the “placebo effect” that these pills can create. Dr. Irving Kirsch of Harvard University has been doing placebo research for over 36 years demonstrating that the antidepressants work about 30% of the time, the same amount that a placebo would. His research is backed up by Walter A. Brown, M.D. who did 25 years of research on the placebo effect in antidepressant use.
So one part of the holistic dietary remedy is to increase one’s niacin. A deficiency in niacin, also known as Vitamin B3 causes pellagra, which produces symptoms such as is seen in depressed patients: irrational anger, feelings of persecution, mania and dementia. Without enough Vitamin C, one can also feel depressed. So patients are encouraged to take large doses of it as well.
The article suggests many of the other concerns that are mentioned in my book as well, regarding the very poor nutritional value in our food stuffs these days with the leaching of minerals from the soil with over farming, the overuse of pesticides and of course the GMOs that are used. We have no idea what the ramifications of all this Is on our population, though our children are less happy, more confrontational and having more food allergies then ever before.
The hormonal levels are being placed out of balance in many of our children, with them developing sexually much quicker than was the case a couple of generations ago, not allowing them to be children very long before being forced into puberty and all that it entails both emotionally and physically.
Please, if you are diagnosed with so-called depression do your best to have the correct testing done by a functional or integrative doctor to find out what exactly is going on with you so that you can receive the appropriate treatment. Because one doesn’t need to deal with emotional issues, if the problem isn’t emotional, right?
If it is emotional, one still needs to deal with the “cause” of the emotional distress, not dampen it by using antidepressants. The work I do often brings up what seems like “depression” and many times isn’t. In those cases where emotions are involved, I have found that depression is a side-effect of many other problems. It can be from losses of physical abilities due to age or illness, anxiety, obsessive compulsive, etc. Lack of feelings of control over one’s own life, or being an abusive relationship, though the client sometimes doesn’t recognize the abuse for what it is. Any time you feel that ill feeling in your gut, or your mind is telling you that you are feeling uncomfortable, irritable, sad or angry, chances are you have had your emotional boundaries over run. This is what abuse in relationships is and it is also what kills a person’s sense of self-esteem, self- love and authority over one’s life.
You need to understand there are are myriads of reasons why people may have issues, all of which need to be ruled out, before calling it “depression, to allow the right treatment to allow the symptoms of depression to vanish!
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About Suzanne
Suzanne Kellner-Zinck founded Dawning Visions Hypnosis in 2002, She has become an innovator in the use of hypnotism and neuro-linguistic programming in the areas of obsessive compulsive disorders such as: eating disorders, sexual addiction and substance abuse as well as working with those with anxiety and mood disorders.
Her clients have come to work with her from across the United States and as far away as Africa to help them to finally be freed from these emotional issues that once ruled their lives. Today she is in the process of bringing her work to many more in the form of ebooks and other downloadable formats.
She is a member of American Holistic Medical Association and the American College for Advancement in Medicine.
Prior to founding Dawning Visions Hypnosis, Kellner-Zinck worked within vendor programs for the mentally ill working to help them to live up to their fullest potential. Many of her previous clients were able to move out on their own and find fulfilling work.
Kellner-Zinck is a Certified Trainer of Hypnosis and Neuro-Linguistic programing through Tad James Company, Inc. and a Master Hypnotist and Master Practitioner of Neuro-Linguistic Programming through Advanced Neuro Dynamics. She holds a bachelor’s degree in education and political studies from Curry College.
Dawning Visions Hypnosis is teaching people that they can indeed leave their unwanted behaviors behind as they move forward to living fulfilling and joy filled lives.