I made myself sick thinking that there were so many things wrong with me. I ended up in the emergency room because I couldn’t breathe and had chest pains. I was having anxiety attacks.

I had every test done...eyes checked, blood tests, sinus x-ray, cardiology workup, lung scan. Everything checked out fine.

Months passed. My quality of life was awful and my doctor suggested that sometimes when there is no explanation for a physical ailment that the patient is probably depressed.

I wasn’t sure if the depression was the cause of my ailment or if I was depressed because I had been feeling this way for so long.

My physician put me on medication for the depression and told me that exercising would make me feel better. I started to exercise and take the medication, and eventually I did start to feel a bit better. But the truth is that it has been two years and while there are times when I feel better, it has never really gone away.

I feel awful all the time and it feels hopeless like this is never going to go away and I’m going to live this way for the rest of my life. It is so frustrating....

Could all this be allergy related? -- Daniel, United States

There have been many published studies linking physical ailments with depression. In the footnotes to this item, I've included a couple that link allergies and depression.

The medical community responds in many different ways to the idea of depression-related physical symptoms. To be honest, there are still some that don't want to fool with it, or want to write it off.

I'm glad that your physician did not simply write you off, but was willing to take the time to be thorough. By checking out your symptoms and sending you to specialists, she was able to rule out many things and make a more accurate diagnosis.

Depression can do lots of things to our bodies. It can cause people to imagine symptoms or to "create" symptoms. It can also cause real valid symptoms.

I've had patients ask me if stress can make allergies worse. I tell them that when our minds are stressed it comes out somewhere in our bodies. Some get ulcers. Some get muscle tension and fatigue. Others get symptoms that we may be less prone to connect with stress (or depression).

One patient mentioned that her physician says depression can affect all parts of our bodies. I think many in the medical community feel this way. But even though a physician may understand and be willing to help, a specialist may also feel that depression is not in his field of expertise.

He may send the patient elsewhere for help, and rightly so. An allergist specializes in allergy, not depression. One patient said she finally met an allergist who was sympathetic to a possible relationship between depression and allergies. But his first step was to send her back to her primary care physician to get her depression under control. The patient's primary care physician had already sent her to a psychiatric specialist and done everything else she could think of to do, so it was almost a catch-22.

I can't leave her in that catch-22 without sharing what I feel is the real answer.

First, though, I have to say that you should follow your physician's advice completely. Never stop your medication without discussing it with her. Depression can be serious, even deadly. It is absolutely necessary that you be under medical supervision and work closely with your physician as you seek help.

Please understand that the words that follow are not written to discourage you from working with your physician. I want to make it very clear that you should always follow your physician's prescribed therapy. Having said that, I now turn to a personal perspective on depression.

My feelings are that the best answer to depression is found in our spirituality.

I can say that from a personal standpoint. I was never treated for depression, but I am about a 50% melancholy and 50% choleric personality based on Tim LaHaye's 4 temperaments. LaHaye's book How to Win Over Depression was recommended to me by a pastor almost 30 years ago. It made me mad! I'm not depressed, I thought! But I read the book, and I saw myself clearly in the melancholy (depression prone) personality.

LaHaye offered a quote from the Christian Bible that he says is a sure cure for depression. I took him at his word and began practicing this in my own life, and I began gaining a victory over what I termed discouragement (but my pastor saw as depression). That quote is found in 1 Thessalonians 5:18. LaHaye says it is impossible to thank God for every situation, no matter how bad it may seem, and be depressed at the same time. I found him to be right!

Many of us have recently watched the movie "The Passion." I think here is where we find the ultimate answer to life's problems. Accepting Christ's sacrifice for my own wrongdoing has made a difference for me. Since then, it has been a growing process of taking time to read from the Christian Bible each day, and spending time in prayer.

Using this approach, I've found a day to day inner strength. I've found that my well-being is not dependent on income or health or relationships. Those things can all vanish in an instant. My well-being is dependent on how I manage the spiritual part of me. As I give God control of that part of me, my depression turns to hope and even excitement. The problem is now out of my hands and in God's hands. I am now free to let the weight of worry go. God also frees me from the burden of responsibility for the outcome when I give him control. There is excitement in waiting to see how he is going to manage this situation that is too big for me.

I watched someone very close to me deal with major depression, face hospitalizations, become addicted to medications, become a zombie who could barely function at times, miss out on so much of life, run from God, be totally miserable, and finally try to find relief by turning to areas that destroyed his life. The medical community provided a crutch for him but it could not provide a cure. That crutch is a very important factor, and not to be taken lightly. If you are depressed, you need the crutch of medical support and therapies.

But my personal perspective is that the medical community's crutches for depression are just that. They are crutches to help people get on their feet. But if the person does not find healing in the One who knit our bodies and minds together, they often continue to feel depressed. It's a depressing world out there. Positive thinking and even "spiritual healing" are impossible unless Christ is at the source of it all. What is there to be positive about without the one planned this all out from the beginning? How can we get a grip on life without his help?

To read more about finding this personal relationship with God, see:
Knowing God

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Updated 7/7/04