What is Chemo Depression?
Nowadays, cancer isn’t always a death sentence. Many people survive many years in remission, and many people are cured by cancer treatments like radiation, surgery, and chemotherapy. Depression is quite common among individuals taking chemotherapy. The depression associated with chemotherapy is called “chemo depression.” Most people feel very weak and sick while on chemo. A round of chemo for the treatment of cancer can seem like a very long time, especially when you are feeling like you just can’t live this way anymore.
If you have been or you are now being treated with chemotherapy, and you feel depressed, you are among a very high number of chemo patients. It’s not uncommon to feel a sense of hopelessness when you are on chemo. You believe your chemo will help you get well, but when you feel so badly it can be difficult to maintain positive thoughts about your state of health and about the effectiveness of the chemotherapy on the cancer. When you have cancer, it is important to keep positive thoughts in your mind. It isn’t going to help to focus on worry and fear, and if you are feeling down; worry will just make your depression symptoms worse.
Chemo depression is caused by the side effects of chemotherapy agents. The side effects include feelings of sadness, despair, and all the other symptoms common to clinical depression. Thus, if you have 5 symptoms common to major depression or chronic depression for a week or longer while taking chemo, you may have chemo depression. You may be at risk for chemo depression if you already have a history of depression in you medical history, or your family’s history and other factors, such as lack of family support, or you have a history of alcohol or drug abuse.
If you are having depression symptoms, you should let your health care practitioner know, so that you can be treated for it. Sometimes individuals will have fear and doubt creep into their mind about the effectiveness of the chemo on your cancer. Sometimes cancer patients have fleeting or recurrent thoughts of putting an end to their lives. You need to let your doctor know, or go to the emergency room at your local hospital immediately, if you start having thoughts of suicide. It might be the side effect of the chemo that is causing the chemical imbalance in your brain to have these thoughts. Your thinking about death, dying and suicide may be a result of the chemicals in your body fighting the cancer. It is important to try and keep a healthy state of mind.
One way to insure that you have a healthy state of mind is to live your life as normally as you can. You may or may have limitations regarding your activities of daily living. If you can get up and move around, it would be good to be as active as you can. If you can walk, getting outside in the fresh air will help you feel better mentally. Even if you cannot walk on your own, you may be able to have assistance to get you out to do things to get your mind off your cancer. Eating a healthy diet is also important to your well being and state of mind. When you eat healthy your body gets what it needs, and you will feel better, in spite of the cancer. You will have good days and bad days when it comes to having depression symptoms, but it is important to try hard to have a positive outlook on your condition and your cancer treatment.
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