Western medicine and depression, could we be related?

The impact of traditional medicine on the spectrum of possible hospital presentation is vast. I will limit my discourse to poverty and psychiatry, specifically depression for now, though it affects almost everything. 

Depression in my dictionary is defined as not enough Aropax effect in the right areas of the brain for those already snared into this murky field of repeat serotonin re uptake blockers prescription, or reduced orgasmic tools other than sex for the newcomers, none of which is a factor here rural KZN.

You would probably find me arrogant to say that I have less than a handful of serotonin re uptake blocker patients on the chronic list. We don’t have much on the tricyclic anti-depressants either. It ain't because the social or financial level of the sample is comparably  better either. 

The economy here is a lot worse than you can imagine, almost the whole community is on social grants, therefore if the triggers had to be considered, we should be at the forefront of depression clusters. 

You would not be wrong to mistake the queue on the social grant day to be that legendary 1994 first election; they are clad in the same colours we wore then, gold green and black. Poverty is universal. Makes you understand why such rural areas are so economically damaging to kids upbringing. They know no better.

We don't have depression though. Traditional healers are the filter as primary health care givers in this setting. Almost nobody comes to hospital as the first port. 

It's the very same reason we have so few early appendix presentations. Could herbs do more for depression than we give them credit for. 

The diagnosis of depression also needs psychiatric academia and serotonin re uptake interventions. Rural doctors could be lacking in that field too. 

Rural setting has been associated with much better mood levels though. Multiple strata modify our sample at each phase.

Schizophrenia on the other hand is at its highest here in rural KZN.

The relationship between the disease profile and the herbs given for the rest of other diseases is for another paper. 

Accepting that you count for nothing in the bigger picture of medical services for the population is sobering though, if only we didn’t have to see the complications. 

I use this to good effect though, more so when I have to manage those diseases that I have very little effect on outcomes, like terminal cancer and suicide.

If physiology and biochemistry of physiology and biochemistry of health are the elements of every mix, then results are assured