No, you're not alone. I spike a fever of 100 to 101 degrees many days. Nausea, aches and pains, sometimes debilitating. Painful eyes. All part of depression. Depression is a serious illness, not just feeling blue. That is the reason we who suffer from it should get check ups at least three times a year. Sometimes it's hard to tell if we're having an illness extra to the depression.

Thanks, I was worried I was the only one. Now I feel alittle better

No, you are definitely not the only one. Depression is not a "mental" condition. It is a physical one that depresses many systems in your body and there is no reason it can't depress your body's ability to tolerate pain or resist illness.

Many people confuse depression with conditions like schizophrenia. A mental illness, schizophrenia affects the actual synapses of the brain, causing it to mistake signals. So you may believe that you are hearing the voice of God or are controlled by thoughts from the family dog. Cats? Certainly. They do control us and to believe they are sending evil signals is not an illness!

Depression is a hormonal imbalance that affects the body's ability to send the proper internal stimulants (adrenaline)and relaxants (ceratonin) to the brain when they are needed. You still are aware of reality and know when you are depressed but your body can't fight it off ... IF it is a clinical depression.

Many depressions are simply a person's refusal to deal with reality, not their inability to do so. Many people believe that they are entitled to happiness and when things go bad, the make themselves depressed because they feel violated.

A chemically out of balance person can be in a happy marriage, have the best job in the world, perfect kids and so much money that he or she keeps in in trash bags in the laundry room ... and would still be depressed when the truck came to deliver more money along with a scholarship to Harvard for the kids! This kind of depression requires medication to get the system back into balance and often takes a long time to restore balance.

The person who feels entitled and is not rewarded sometimes needs only the reality of a well places foot to a misaligned butt. It often takes an expert to tell the depressions apart becasue the symptoms appear the same. One arrives from the body chemistry and the other from a disordered personality which is far more difficuylt to fix because usually the person doesn't want it fixed! They get fringe benefits from the attention while a chemically depressed person wants only to make the pain and the "heavy feeling" go away.

Good luck and don't feel you are alone. You are not.

You are definitely not alone. I've been battling depression for many years, trying to just 'be strong' through it all. But I've also been battling many illness after illness. After talking to my Doctor it became obvious that what was making me continuously ill was my depression. Your whole body is connected . . . so a chemical imbalance affects the WHOLE, not just a part.

I've been on an SSRI for 3 weeks now. It has made all the difference in the world!!! Are you on a med or have you talked to a physician about that option?

Good luck to you ~

OrdinaryGirl, very glad you took some action and feel better.

JohnB: As I said in my other post on this subject, I had a moderate case of arthritis for over 20 years that kept me from all sports and enjoying many things in life. And for ten of those years I could not even raise my arms above the horizontal. After discovering I had clinical depression and getting treated for it (SSRI), my arthritis totally disappeared in a couple of months. From my direct experience, OrdinaryGirl's comments about the body and mind being directly connected are right on the money.

Good luck from me too...

depression tends to affect me physically by taking away my appetite or i feel nauseous. also the fatigue--i can feel like i am trying to walk through water. other than that, i tend to be very physically healthy. it's my nervous system that rings like a five alarm fire bell some days. or my mind gets so tired. or i just need to get away from people, movement, and noise.

It is true that you can physically get sick from depression. You feel so run down that you want to sleep to get away from the concrete jungle.

Too much depression can cause you to be physically sick. Do take time out for yourself, and be good to yourself first; then you can be good to others.