The human mood is like color, contains a range of hues. Sometimes it has bright shades of happiness, again sometimes the dark cloud of depression sheds the sky. Dysthymia or low-grade depression is such a mood problem that falls under this dark range but does not necessarily reach the level of depression. You can define it as a low-grade depression that usually lasts for at least one to two years depending on the age of the person. Although it is not a major depression but it keeps you away from feeling good. As a consequence, it interferes with your daily activities. So, we can compare dysthymia with the dim gray of depression.
But how will you know whether you have dysthymia or not? Well, you might have dysthymia if you feel depressed all over the day. It is like you are doing all the activities as usual but you don’t find much motivation to do all of them. Some of the common symptoms of dysthymia are as follows:
- Feelings of hopelessness, worthlessness, or guilt
- tiredness or lack of energy
- low self-esteem
- Trouble concentrating, focusing, and making decisions
- Sadness, tearfulness, frequent crying
- Thoughts of death or suicide in extreme cases
- overeating or loss of appetite
- insomnia or sleeping too much
- Appetite or weight changes
- trouble concentrating or making decisions
- Restlessness
- Lack of enjoyment or pleasure in things
- Low energy and reduced motivation
- Sleep problems
Interestingly, people with mild low-grade depression may not even realize that they have dysthymia because the chronic feelings of low mood last for so long that they consider it normal.
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Causes of low-grade depression
Like major depressive disorder, low-grade depression is a form of persistent depressive disorder that can occur due to many reasons. Some of them are like:
- genetic susceptibility
- biochemical imbalance
- life stress
- environmental circumstances.
It is difficult to identify whether the depression exists independently or due to other reasons also. Sometimes, the existence of one illness makes it difficult o treat the other illness.
What is the diagnosis of low-grade depression?
Dysthymic disorder cannot be identified with a blood test or brain scan. Instead, doctors need to diagnose it through counseling and identifying other symptoms. The symptoms are fit with the patterns laid out by DSM-5 which is a guidebook for diagnosing mental health like depression. Usually, doctors determine the presence of dysthymia with the presence of mental depression that lasts for 2 years for adults and 1 year for children or teens.
Besides, doctors prescribe some specific blood tests and urine tests to identity the underline medical condition like hypothyroidism. As mentioned, doctors continue counseling to identify if there is a history of depression in the family.
Treatment
PDD (Persistent depressive disorder) responds to the same treatments that are used to treat other major depression. Doctors usually prescribe antidepressant medications along with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). Besides, doctors continue psychotherapy or talk therapy which turns helpful for low-grade depressed people.
How to cope with dysthymia
Besides medical intervention, there are also self-care treatments to treat depression, no matter whether it is mild or chronic. Here are some of the ways:
- Daily moderately -intense exercise or vigorous exercise.
- Take medicines routinely
- Avoid alcohol and illegal drugs.
- Eat a varied and nutritious diet.
- Stick to your hobbies
- Have a consistence and enough sleep. Also, ensure you have a restful sleeping environment.
- Keep yourself surrounded with positive and supportive people.
Final verdict
A sound body and mind is the notion of healthy life. So, if you find yourself diagnosed with dysthymia don’t neglect it. If you find you can cope up with the dysthymia that is ok. But if you find the depression symptoms are getting worse take help from a medical practitioner.