Depression is a very serious subject and by no means does any doctor, functional, holistic or alternative, downplay the seriousness of what depression can cause. The symptoms of depression are vast, from physical to mental to emotional. The effects are devastating on it’s victims, families, careers, children and futures. Suicide is the most awful ending to depression, but it is not the most common at all.

Most people live with depression. Some seek counseling, while others just suffer through the symptoms. Many learn to live with the symptoms until life is only a shell of what it used to be. But this is not how to handle depression. Even treatment, with a psychiatrist and medication, may not always help the ways that one may expect.

Some of the basic signs of depression include:

We all know how we get when we don’t have enough sleep. We are cranky and we look terrible. Often, we are too tired to perform our normal daily tasks. But those are just the things we notice right away. Dig deeper and see how having an unhealthy sleep pattern can affect your brain much more severely than you may think. Take for example our ability to make quick and smart decisions, or to solve problems. All of those examples are hindered on even just one night of bad sleep. Imagine how a person with insomnia must feel.

Every doctor will stress the importance of good sleeping habits, but a doctor, practicing functional medicine, will get to the root of the problem, find out what it causing your bad sleep, and help you solve it. There could be many reasons why you are not sleeping well. Everything from stress, to what you eat can easily affect your sleep.

Fosamax, a biophosphonate, is very commonly used for osteoporosis. It works by slowing bone loss and increasing bone mass, and yet did you know that it can cause jaw necrosis?

fosamaxThe warning initially had been that cancer patients on the drug were more at risk, but now it seems that if you had recent dental work on infections, you are at a higher risk as well.

How can this FDA approved medication be associated with pain, swelling, infection and exposed bone in the jaw?

Quinolones, basically synthetic, broad-spectrum antibiotics, are used to treat almost everything, from urinary tract infections to gynecological infections, STDs, skin infections, and respiratory infection like bronchitis, pneumonia and sinusitis.  And yet, a very well known side effect of quinolones is that it can cause tendon rupture.

This can become a huge problem. Quinolones can cause tendon rupture, and someone who is just on treadmill or running while on the medication can tear their Achilles tendon. The recommendation is usually that you don’t run or jog while on the medication.

Crestor, a brand name medication, a statin to be exact, is now being touted by the Food and Drug Administration as a wonder-drug and the government agency has deemed it is safe even for healthy people to keep cholesterol down.

Do you see something wrong with this? Let us take a look.

Diabetics work their whole lives on lowering blood sugar levels and little do they know that with decreasing it they make risk of death even higher.

You can take millions drugs, but if you don’t have a good relationship, nothing will ever work! There are a lot of toxins in the environment, bacteria, infections, illnesses and diseases. There are medications, supplements and changes you can make to fight it, but it takes a healthy relationship to keep you healthy.

You can hire a million of consultants, spend entire fortune and a lot of time trying to fix your business, but if your hormones are out of whack, you are heading for disaster. This couldn’t be more obvious if you look at menopausal women, who are either business owners or pros.

The outlook for 2010 is bleak. Homes will continue to be foreclosed, jobs will be lost, and less money will be flowing as compared to years past. Also inevitable: we will get another year older. Bad news, right?

Not really!

Though we may not be able to control the outside elements that affect our lives and the world around us, we can do something to make sure than in the survival of the fittest, we are, indeed, the fittest we can be.

Drugs that give us a quick fix, medications from the drug companies, could be giving us more than we bargained for, as we are learning in the many examples where drug companies are not telling the truth:

http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2009/02/26/another-drug-company-accused-of-hiding-negative-study-results/?mod=djemHL

The Department of Justice’s complaint against the lab that markets Celexa and Lexapro has once again brought to the forefront that drug companies may be hiding bad results of their medications, while only releasing the better data.