Ayusanjivani Chikitsa
Dr. Prashant Sawant's
Copyright "ayusanjivani Chikitsa" 2011 All rights resesrved E-mail: drprashantsawant@gmail.com
Depression - A Case Study
Mrs. Kamala (name changed), 47 year old lady, visited our canter, accompanied by her husband, in the month of February 2004. She was looking very confused and had multiple complaints. Her major complaints, which she had for over a year, were: irritability, lack of sleep, excessive crying (which she described as watering of eyes), fear and anxiety.
On examination, her general condition was fair, she looked a bit restless and hyper-exited, she had a good orientation of space and time, she was answering all questions and told about her major complaints as mentioned above. Her face appeared puffy. The skin around the eyes and cheeks looked dark (hyper-pigmented). She had normal body temperature, pulse rate of 86/min, blood pressure 130 / 100 mm of Hg and weighed 69 Kg. On auscultation the chest was clear and the heart sounds were normal. On physical examination, no other abnormality was detected.
History of Presenting Complaint:
Kamala’s husband informed that he has been noticing certain behavioral changes in her since one year (April 03), like going out without informing during the working hours (the duo runs a travel agency) and then calling after 4-5 hours from some far away place. She never remembered why she went out and what she did for those 4-5 hours. These episodes increased in frequency over 3-4 months. In July 03, the husband noticed that she talked irrelevantly (delirium?) and got irritated for petty things. She couldn’t sleep till early hours of the morning and felt restless throughout the night. At this point they decided to seek medical advice and consulted a psychiatrist, who diagnosed the disease as unipolar depression and prescribed anti-depression and anti-psychotic medicines, namely, clonazepam, lorazepam and trifluoperazine.
Mrs. Kamala had no past history of any major illness. However, she had a bad obstetric history. She had three abortions and a stillbirth during early years of her married life. She never conceived afterwards, despite of prolonged medical help. She took care of and raised a girl child, of her sister-in-law, and raised her like her own daughter. Meanwhile, in 2002, her husband met with an accident and was bed ridden for more than six months, because of which they also suffered a heavy loss in the business. As a business partner and wife of bedridden husband, the situation was too demanding for Kamla. Adding to her predicament, the girl child, Kamala had raised, who was now 18 year of age, left to stay with her own parents. The separation caused a deep anguish for Mrs. Kamala. Presumably, the overall stress triggered the depression.
After taking the allopathic medicines for eight months, which did not give satisfactory relief in the symptoms, Kamla and her husband decided to “try” ayurvedic treatment.
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Mrs. Kamala (name changed), 47 year old lady, visited our canter, accompanied by her husband, in the month of February 2004. She was looking very confused and had multiple complaints. Her major complaints, which she had for over a year, were: irritability, lack of sleep, excessive crying (which she described as watering of eyes), fear and anxiety.
On examination, her general condition was fair, she looked a bit restless and hyper-exited, she had a good orientation of space and time, she was answering all questions and told about her major complaints as mentioned above. Her face appeared puffy. The skin around the eyes and cheeks looked dark (hyper-pigmented). She had normal body temperature, pulse rate of 86/min, blood pressure 130 / 100 mm of Hg and weighed 69 Kg. On auscultation the chest was clear and the heart sounds were normal. On physical examination, no other abnormality was detected.
History of Presenting Complaint:
Kamala’s husband informed that he has been noticing certain behavioral changes in her since one year (April 03), like going out without informing during the working hours (the duo runs a travel agency) and then calling after 4-5 hours from some far away place. She never remembered why she went out and what she did for those 4-5 hours. These episodes increased in frequency over 3-4 months. In July 03, the husband noticed that she talked irrelevantly (delirium?) and got irritated for petty things. She couldn’t sleep till early hours of the morning and felt restless throughout the night. At this point they decided to seek medical advice and consulted a psychiatrist, who diagnosed the disease as unipolar depression and prescribed anti-depression and anti-psychotic medicines, namely, clonazepam, lorazepam and trifluoperazine.
Mrs. Kamala had no past history of any major illness. However, she had a bad obstetric history. She had three abortions and a stillbirth during early years of her married life. She never conceived afterwards, despite of prolonged medical help. She took care of and raised a girl child, of her sister-in-law, and raised her like her own daughter. Meanwhile, in 2002, her husband met with an accident and was bed ridden for more than six months, because of which they also suffered a heavy loss in the business. As a business partner and wife of bedridden husband, the situation was too demanding for Kamla. Adding to her predicament, the girl child, Kamala had raised, who was now 18 year of age, left to stay with her own parents. The separation caused a deep anguish for Mrs. Kamala. Presumably, the overall stress triggered the depression.
After taking the allopathic medicines for eight months, which did not give satisfactory relief in the symptoms, Kamla and her husband decided to “try” ayurvedic treatment.
Next>>