Clinical depression is generally held to be a mental illness but there are physical symptoms of depression as well as emotional and psychological ones. The emotions experienced by those suffering from depression are the same ones that can actually cause all those physical symptoms. Symptoms of leg, back and joint pain are common but some people may also complain of headaches and stomach upsets and a whole range of other ailments. Severe cases of depression can manifest very severe symptoms of a number of diseases and conditions that the sufferer is certain they have, but medical tests cannot detect. In these cases the physical symptoms of depression must first be investigated before they are discounted and many people who are suffering from severe depression may persist and even insist that their doctor takes their symptoms seriously, refusing to even consider that the problem is depression.
Sufferers of depression often complain of feeling sad, or miserable, or exhausted and too tired to do anything. Even easy things seem to be too much effort. Some people have no appetite when they are depressed, while others may comfort eat all day and then have the associated weight problems. Bouts of anxiety are also common and there may be a cause for this, or there may not.
People with physical symptoms of depression often just do not want company and they don’t want to see their friends, or they are frightened of what might happen if they are left alone. Sleep is often difficult and includes a lot of dreams, and many sufferers wake up very early and cannot get back to sleep. It is also very common to have pain in various parts of the body for which there is no discernible reason. Back ache is a very common complaint among people with physical symptoms of depression.
Depression is not usually a biological complaint and so does not have a list of physical symptoms of depression that can be ticked off one by one in order to make a diagnosis. The physical effects seem to be triggered by psychological and emotional factors. Experiments and various scientific tests have shown that less than ten percent of depression cases have a biological cause, but in some cases there are physical symptoms of depression and physical causes. Lack of serotonin in the brain is one well known physical cause of depression.
Physical symptoms of depression can vary from person to person and they can be quite mild, or very severe, debilitating, and painful. Some people complain that they cannot even get out of bed, or walk around, and need to be looked after, while others suffer from severe pain in various areas, but you do not have to be suffering from all of the symptoms mentioned above in order to have clinical depression. Any bout of depression that interrupts your normal lifestyle, or makes it difficult to cope with every day matters needs treatment. First symptoms may be severe fatigue, anxiety, worrying and inability to concentrate.