Feeling low or down does not always mean that you have a major depressive disorder. In fact, most times having low energy or feeling down can be caused by something else entirely. An acute infection such as a cold or flu may be the culprit. Various mood disorders can also be caused by chronic medical conditions.

Together, mood disorders due to known physiological or medical causes can account for as many as 5 to 15% of all treated cases. Unfortunately, however, there are many mood disorders resulting from related medical causes or conditions related to depression. They go unrecognized until after standard therapies for depression have failed.

Depressive symptoms can be related to and even caused by other medical problems, psychiatric illnesses, substance abuse, or a combination of factors. The overlap between depression and other mental and physical illnesses further complicates the difficult task of trying to find out exactly what is going on with a particular individual who is demonstrating any number of depressive symptoms.

To establish whether someone truly suffers from a depressive disorder, other potential causes of depressed mood must be ruled out. Some of these include heart disease, endocrine problems, anxiety disorders, substance abuse, seasonal affective disorder, personality disorders, and premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD), as well as schizoaffective disorder.

For example, a person presenting with depression may be suffering from a hormone imbalance or show depressive symptoms related to a borderline personality disorder. Appropriate diagnosis, then, requires monitoring of symptomatic people for a period of time to determine whether their depression is best categorized as major depression or some other depressive diagnosis. During this monitoring period, a clinician will need complete laboratory and psychological analyses and knowledge of the patients’ histories in order to make accurate diagnoses.

There are also other illnesses and issues that can result as an aftereffect of a diagnosis of any of the depressive disorders. These are equally difficult to accurately determine if any of the depressive symptoms overlap those which are known to be related to the suspected health problem.

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