Nursing & Depression

Nurses Stress 101

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  1. Nurses and Depression/Anxiety

    • 401
      I think the incidence of depression/anxiety is higher in nursing than other professions.
    • 264
      I feel depression/anxiety has interfered with my job performance.
    • 260
      I feel nursing has played a part in my depression
    • 23
      I feel administration is as supportive to nurses w/ depression/anxiety as w/ other diseases

460 members have participated

While visiting in the lounge one day, we discovered that every nurse there was on an anti-depressant.

I have had 'Treatment Resistant Depression' for about 20 years--as long as I've been a nurse. Now I am totally burned out, on major meds, and am seeking disability d/t depression/anxiety.

I beleive years of long hours, high stress, high expectations and little appreciation (from management, not patients) has contributed to this.

How many other jobs consider you a tratior b/c you call in sick? And trying to get off for a sick child is an unforgivable sin. How many other jobs want you to work overtime on the days you are scheduled, call you at all hours of the night or day when you are off, first pleading w/ you to come in, then laying a guilt trip on you if you say "NO!" And let's not forget the mandatory inservices and CEU's that take time away from your family.

If any profession should understand the importance of the individuals' physical, mental, social and spiritual self it should be nursing--after all we are taught in nursing school about treating the patient as a whole, not just a disease! Why don't we treat our staff the same way.

Anyone out there in the same boat?

Well, I am hoping the lamictal will work.....my doc seemes to think it will. So far I am still on lowest dose, but increase starting tomorrow. Have had no rash so far, so I've got my fingers crossed!!!! As for pricey, my insurance, I pay 20$ for the month. The same as my Wellbutrin and Topamax. Trazadone is 5$. It's the Nexium that kills me at 35$ a month, hoping I can get off that soon!!

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Well, I am hoping the lamictal will work.....my doc seemes to think it will. So far I am still on lowest dose, but increase starting tomorrow. Have had no rash so far, so I've got my fingers crossed!!!! As for pricey, my insurance, I pay 20$ for the month. The same as my Wellbutrin and Topamax. Trazadone is 5$. It's the Nexium that kills me at 35$ a month, hoping I can get off that soon!!

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I am not sure how I feel about docs that multidose drugs and add more and more varied drugs to someone's med tx....anybody else feel this way??

My psych doc started this with me and I had to stop him....mood altering drugs do exactly that...how could I know how I was 'really' feeling with so many drugs in me???

Maybe I'm thinking overly simplistic here...but I would rather take one antidepressant and one sedative at HS than be juggling different meds with different side effects...how does one keep it all straight??

Just some rambling thoughts...by no means lucid nor intended as advice... LOL! ;)

I find this so often in elderly patients as well where their doc has them on so many different kinds of drugs...and I question why they have not found a way to get the desired responses from newer and better( and hopefully fewer) drug(s).

Hoping the Lamictal helps as well, Sphinx, and that your son gets well soon!

As for me I seem to be doing well on a small dose of Prozac..helps me keep things 'in perspective'. :)

And mjlrn...I can relate to your 'female problems' ...I have similar symptoms and have uterine fibroids and adhesions. Don't put off a doc visit for too long...need to make sure nothing more serious is going on down there too...

(((HUGS))) all as we enter the Holiday season where depression can worsen for many of us.

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Well, in my case, Mattsmom, in regards to multiple meds, over the years, I have found out the hard way that taking a single antidepressant just doesn't cut it. I have tried VERY many, going from minimal dosages, up to max dose, with either no change, or it will work and then "poop out". It has only been since my doctors started "augmenting" my meds that I have been able to pull out of any deep depressions. Even then, it hasn't always been successful. My current psychiatrist is very conservative, and doesn't like to mess with my meds too much. This most recent change was made when he realized I fit into the bipolar category (if you are bipolar it's not real good idea to take an antidepressant by itself anyway).....because of the high risk of side effects (rash) with lamictal, which the risk is higher if you taper the med up too fast, he is being very cautious and taking me up to a therapeutic dose very slowly. It will be several more weeks before I am at what is considered a baseline dose. He said once I am at a dose that helps me, he will look at taking away my other meds.....I am guessing the Topamax, as it is another med often used to stabalize mood. I believe he left me on it for now, because if it is helping even a little, it will stabalize me somewhat until the lamictal kicks in. I'm not sure if he'd take me off wellbutrin or not? That's been my base antidepressant for years, the one I've had the most success with. SSRI's are helpful, but only short term, and on the doses that I require, I tend to develop terrible bruxism, and at one point when I was on zoloft, my jaw was so out of whack it popped out of joint!! (ouch!). The trazadone of course is just to help me sleep. He won't have me take a benzo for sleep (thank goodness, I have friends who have been prescribed ativan for sleep, and can't get off it)....took ambien , which is really only intended for short term, and I found it lost it's effectiveness after a time.....and even that I found hard to get off. Trazadone isn't like that. I love it. I take it when I need it, when i don't, I am ok.

On the other hand, a few years ago I was being treated in the clinic associated with our supposedly great university teaching hospital. The psychiatrists there treated me with a drug of the week approach. One doc put me on serzone. After a while it wasn't helping, so he took me off and tried something else....which wasn't working.....and a few weeks later says "why don't we try serzone"......all this with my chart and med list right in front of him! (that was when I decided it was worth paying the extra money to see a private doctor, even if it would cost a lot more!) I can go one about those yahoos there, but I won't bother, lets just say that they don't seem to know their a** from a hole in the ground!! haha.....

Anyway, that's my little story. I wish it wasn't that way. I know people who do fine on one antidepressant for years, maybe need a tweak or change after a few years. I am so envious. Plus, the cost adds up. Sure, 20 a pop isn't bad, but when you think about the yearly cost, it's like-UGH.

(((hugs))) to you as well, you are right, as much as I love Christmas, it is getting harder, and this year will likely be the hardest ever due to circumstances......hope you and everyone else will be well.

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This is interesting and informative. Sometimes I overhear people talking about meds they take. It's hard to fault anyone for taking a brain med, or mood med, or personality med, because everyone is different. I couldn't dream of talking about this in real life because talking about emotions is personal, and usually taboo.

Just like some laxatives take several days to work, life and excess chemicals can build up in us. Drink 1 liter of H2O, bid, and > HR >140 BPM, depending on age (x30minutes) =>4x(per week), try to go to a sauna and sweat once in a while. Eat at least 50/50 raw foods. Try for weeks. Attain baseline. 'm sorry :-(, I have no right to be hear and shouldn't talk :-(

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mario, once again I find myself wondering what the hell you are talking about? Is this the same tired rhetoric of eat well, exercise and everything will be ok? Can I ask you something? How do you know any of us depressed people don't already take care of our physical selves? I personally have neglected physical exercise the past few months due to my low pain tolerance and recent surgeries....but I do eat right and am hydrated well. I believe others here have pointed out that these methods are good at *staying* stable (great for stress relief, for sure), and for people with less serious depression. But believe me, when you are so far at the bottom of the pit, that you pray to die every day, when you try to hasten that along by attempting suicide.......no amount of water, exercise or good healthy food will "bring me to baseline". Meds help you get to a point where you can help yourself.....therapy can help you look within yourself at where your troubles lay, and help you deal with them......and taking care of your physical self becomes important, but not until you can drag yourself to a point where you can actually *do* what needs to be done. When you are so depressed a shower or meal is an effort, aerobic activity is darn near impossible.

BTW, my 10 year old says seagulls are rats with wings. We live several miles from the lake, and they hang around anyway. They hang out at McDonalds. I think they are pretty, until I decide, heck I'll be nice and throw one a piece of my bun. Then all of a sudden my car is surrounded by masses of screaming birds who climb everywhere, on my windshield, on my roof, peering down into the window, etc. Just thought I'd share that with you.

Oh, and you have a "right" to post wherever you want, but you have been in this thread posting the same thing frequently....been told the same thing by many people often.......you have no experience professionally nor have you yourself suffered depression. I'd respect you a lot more if you had the life experience that most of us here have had. See, we *know* how it feels. This thread has turned into a support for us, not an "ask Mario" advice column.

sorry to be so snippy. I've been quite the little witch lately.

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Originally posted by sphinx

BTW, my 10 year old says seagulls are rats with wings. We live several miles from the lake, and they hang around anyway. They hang out at McDonalds. I think they are pretty, until I decide, heck I'll be nice and throw one a piece of my bun. Then all of a sudden my car is surrounded by masses of screaming birds who climb everywhere, on my windshield, on my roof, peering down into the window, etc. Just thought I'd share that with you.

Your 10 year old does not know that much about gulls. First off, gulls can fly, so they would NEVER get depressed. The metabolism of a typical Herring gull, or Glaucous-winged gull, makes us seem simple. A gull will eat most anything, including small mammals and young left unattended where they colonize. Only a gull can injest either fresh or salt water, where I or your son would die on salt water alone. Gulls are truely wild, and won't let you come near them.

I am willing to get smacked down on depression, and usually do so I disclaim myself in totality. I know I can get stuck up physiologically when I don't exercise, as has happened in nursing school, blah blah blah Many people are scrunched down in life with inactivity when they genetically should be more active.

The gulls communicate more visually, and see things differently than you or I, and when it comes to food, they all have to scavange at the same time. People and nature both offer a bountiful life for most gulls. 'm sorry

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Specializes in LTC, assisted living, med-surg, psych.

Mario---WTF is all that about the gulls?! And what does it have to do with what the rest of us are talking about? (I read Jonathan Livingston Seagull many years ago---is this an allusion to the book or its greater message?)

As to what some of you were saying about perimenopause, I think it has a LOT to do with what I'm going through these days. I'm not at all afraid to have a hysterectomy---in fact, that would be wonderful---but I can NOT afford to be off work for 4-6 weeks, no way, no how. My husband makes nowhere near enough to support all 6 of us on his own, there's no savings, and no one we could borrow from to help us get by if I were to be out of commission for that long. So surgery is completely out of the question, unless of course there's something life-threatening going on, and I doubt that.

I did call and make an appointment to see my doctor for a full physical next Tuesday, though. Gotta start somewhere, I suppose. The other good thing I did was ask for a demotion last Friday---I was a resident-care manager for a SNF, and I've had a bellyful of the grueling hours, the paper work, and the 24-hour-a-day responsibility. I'm staying on at my facility, but I'm creating a "utility player" position, in which I'll be doing wound care, some QA and overflow stuff for the RCMs, and admissions. I think that's going to do a lot for my mood, especially since I will get PAID for putting in 14-hour days, if I have to do that at all (nurses, don't EVER let yourself be put on salary if you can help it---it sounds good, but when you put in 50-60-hour weeks routinely, you're making only about twice the minimum wage). The thing is, when I go home at night, I'll be able to focus on my family and some of the other aspects of life I've been neglecting since being in management, and that will also be a good thing.

So, hopefully things will start getting better soon, but I'm still gonna follow through with my medical and psychological issues. Thanks to all of you who have offered your words of wisdom and support--I'll keep you posted. And Sphinx, thanks for thinking of me even in the midst of your own pain---hang in there!!!!!!

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I have found that nurses tend to be basically co-dependent by nature. We come into nursing to feed this need we have to "fix" people. I imagine that depression is something that goes along with this basic personality type.

If depression is not real, then why do I have a life to be envied, but I feel like I am worthless for days at a time?

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Specializes in MICU.

Hello sister nurses. Let me recommend the "psychopharmacology tips" website to y'all. Once there, take a look at the Psycho-Babble bulletin board. Here's a link: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/ - just scroll down to find the discussion. Lots of interesting discussion on the topic at hand, lightly moderated by a very experienced psychiatrist - in Chicago, is he? University affiliated guy. I take a whole cocktail of meds, it's taken me about eight years to refine it, and I'm doing pretty well, although depression is always a moving target, and a pain in the ass. I've been in the ICUs for 19 years, and a lot of the time I actually enjoy the job. Of course, then there's the rest of the time...fwiw, I actually think that the fish oil thing works, although variably from one brand to the next. Strange. I use Natrol. The science behind it, or at least the studies seem to be fairly unanimous, although ymmv.

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To all who support each other at allnurses.com on this thread. Please utilize the ignore feature. It will make your life a little less bothersome, and we all need that. It's kinda like not looking at roadkill. Love and peace,

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geez Carrie, didn't realize this board even had an ignore feature!!!!!! thank goodness!!!!

yeah, to me, it's like looking at a train wreck, you try to not look, but you just can't help it......I love ignore/killfile/block. Thanks for the heads up. Shall help with the irritation factor. Some "people" can really raise my hackles, and bring out the nasty side of me.

cheers!

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