Other medication and depression
I’m on lots of tablets for other health problems, and I’ve been getting very depressed. Could any of my other medication actually cause depression?
Yes, they certainly could. One way of checking if any of your other treatment could be affecting your mood is by reading the (very) small print on the slips that come with your medication.
Don’t be put off by the long lists of possible side-effects, as most of these are actually quite rare. Your chemist or your doctor would be a good person to ask whether depression is a possible side effect of any particular medication.
Some drugs that are well recognised as affecting your mood. Chronic illness can in itself be depressing. Poor pain control (from a slipped disc or arthritis, for example) is very debilitating.
Loss of mobility (say from a broken leg or a stroke) causes loss of social contacts and recreation. Recovery from major surgery can also be an exhausting business. Some medical treatments used can also make you depressed.
Does the Pill make you depressed?
Almost certainly not, although some women do seem to be particularly sensitive to the effects of the oestrogen in the combined oral contraceptive pill, and may feel more moody or irritable. Trying a different combination pill often seems to do the trick. Switching to a brand with a lower dose of oestrogen may help. If that fails, consider using the progestogen-only pill (POP).
Remember this has to be taken more carefully at the same time every day, and does have a failure rate of about 1% per year (that means that 1 in 100 women using this method of contraception will become pregnant in a year).
The depot-contraceptive injection, Depo-Provera, works in the same way, has a similar failure rate, and also has no oestrogen in it.
If you are going through a bad spell, or are feeling unsettled, it’s really important not to overlook safe contraception.
People who are depressed may not place enough value on looking after themselves, and may take risks that they wouldn’t usually consider. You certainly don’t want to have to be thinking about dealing with an unexpected pregnancy when you’re depressed.
As we have seen, there are a multitude of causes and factors that bring about depressive illness. The causes in one person are never the same in someone else – we each have our own story and our unique background, which will colour our illness.
