Depression - hate the drugs

Please doctor
I would appreciate greatly your help. I am a catholic priest, 66 years old. I have suffered from depression since the age of 18 and since then have been on antidepressants. I have had many serious depressive crisis, when was unable to do my work, but I have always somehow recovered and kept going. I am still on two antidepressant, sometimes three and I suffer a lot when the whather changes, I become listless and exahusted mentally and physically. Please, is it possible to address my problems in a more natural and deep way than the drugs I have been taking all my life? I have filled the questionaire and I hope that someone will be able to help me. I don't feel at the moment I can remove the antidepressants, so I hope that they can be assumed together with the homeopathice medicine.
Thank you very much


Patient ID: Sex: Age:
Male, 66
Please answer the following questions in a descriptive manner after careful analysis and recollection of previous experiences and happenings.

1. Describe your main suffering?
Depression, difficulty to concentrate for long time, mental and physical exhaustion after a mental effort
2. What other physical sufferings do you have in your body?
Diabetes, hip replacement, dilatation of aorta



3. What mental sufferings / feelings do you have associated with your physical sufferings?
None, my problems are mental

4. What exactly do you feel when you are at your worst?
General listlessness. Oppression in the chest, confusion, sadness, desire to be alone.


5. When did it all start? Can you connect it to any past event or disease?
In 1962, when I was 18, in connection with my school exam. It is also connected with my mother's death of breast cancer when I was 9. I was left with my brother and sister in the care of close relatives ( granmother and aunties). My father was away for long periods for he was a sailor. My father remarried a year after to a sister of my late mother. She was very unloving and cold.


6. Which time of the day you are worst?
In the evening, I am particularly prone to exhaustion and I need to relax.

7. What are the things which aggravate your suffering and which are those which ameliorate the same?
Change in the weather, mental efforts, physical efforts, lack of adequate sleep. Rest, prayer. I pray a lot.


8. Do your think your sufferings have relation to any external stimuli (like, change of place) or any internal biological changes in the body, like, menses (in females)?
Yes, changes in weather and season, clashes with people and lack of love.


9. When do you feel better, during hot weather or cold weather, humid or dry weather?
No, what is critical for my symptoms is the change in the weather.

10. Describe your general mental set up? Are you Moody, Arrogant, Mild, Agreeable Changeable, Nervous, Suspicious, Easily offended, Quiet, Arguing, Irritating, Lazy etc
All of the above. All of them except Moody

- How do you feel before or during a thunderstorm?
I feel my symptomse worsen. During I feel more relaxed
- Do you like being consoled during your tough times?
- Are you sensitive to external stimuli like smell, noise, light etc?
Yes,I like light

- Do you have any typical habit or gesture like nail biting, causeless
weeping, talking to one self etc?
I scratch myself and look at my hands when I am not well.
- How do you feel about your friends, family, your children and especially your husband / wife?
I am a priest, so I have no wife. I am an affectionate person but very sensitive and dependent on the negative judgement of loved ones.
11. What are your fears and do you dream of any situation repeatedly?
Religious scruples about sex. Fear of suffering. I used to dream of failing my exams and of being naked and emarassed in the streets.
12. What do you crave for in food items and what are your aversions?
Meat, wine, salty cheese, fruit. Fish, carrots.

13. How is your thirst: Less, Normal or Excessive?
nOrmal

14. How if your hunger: Less, Normal or Excessive?
Normal

15. Is there any kind of food which your body can’t stand?
none

16. Is your sweat normal or less or more? Where does it sweat more: Head, Trunk or Limbs?
Normal. Trunk

17. How is your bowel movement and stool type?
Regular.
18. How well do you sleep? Do you have a particular posture of sleeping?
When my symptoms worsen I have difficulty in sleeping. on the side


19. Do you think you are able to satisfy your sexual desires in general?
No, never. It used to be very challenging for me as a priest as I was oversexed.
20. How do you think you are different from others, if at all?
I am very sincere, I cannot lie. I am sensitive

21. What medications have been taken earlier by you to treat the diseases and do you have any particular symptom surfacing after the medication?
Fluexetin and effexor.

22. What major diseases are running in your family?
Mental problems on my mother side. Diabetes on my father side. Circulatory problems on my father side