The Kaleidoscope World of Psychotic
Depression
Seeing flying purple elephants, dead people and talking
objects, these are some of the side effects of psychotic
depression. Entertaining, as it may seem, having psychotic
depression is a very serious condition. It is a type of
depression that is accompanied with delusions, which are
irrational thoughts and fears and hallucinations, in which you
see and hear nonexistent things
However, there are also other types of depression that is
accompanied with hallucinations. The difference is that people
with psychotic depression know that their thoughts are not
true.
Seeing the Signs and Wonders
The common symptoms of psychotic depression are anxiety,
hypochondria, and agitation. You can also have difficulty
sleeping and develop insomnia. There are times in which you
become sedentary. You also tend to have digestion problems,
especially constipation. Your cognitive skills are also
affected greatly to the point of impairment.
Then you start having hallucinations where you start seeing
surreal things like flying objects and talking nonliving
things. You also develop delusional thoughts, like paranoia and
other unreasonable fears.
The Cause
The cause of psychotic depression is not yet identified but
research shows that it is linked to a certain hormone named
Cortical; which your body produces in large volumes especially
when you are stressed out. Unlike other kinds of depression
there are no specific risk factors for the incidence of
psychotic depression.
The Treatment
When you are being treated for psychotic depression, it would
require you for a long hospital stay. You also have to undergo
close check-ups and follow-ups with a mental healthcare
professional.
An antidepressant drugs alone are not enough to treat this kind
of depression. Usually, a combination use of antipsychotic
medications and tricyclic antidepressants work best for
treatment. For those cases with bipolar disorder, lithium is
added to the drugs to reach optimal results.
Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is often a last resort, which
is used to treat extreme cases. Although this kind of therapy
has good results, it is never used without due consideration.
The whole treatment process should be administered and done by
a trained professional, usually a psychiatrist.
It usually takes up a year for a psychotic depressive patient
to recover. The psychotic symptoms may not return any more
after you are treated, but you can still have some visitations
from the symptoms of depression. That’s why it is very
important to have regular check-ups even after treatment, and
continued medication for depression if your doctor advises you
to do so.
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