Astrocal Injection for Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)

Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)

Seasonal affective disorder (SAD), also known as winter depression, winter blues, summer depression, summer blues, or seasonal depression, is mood disorders in which people who have normal mental health throughout most of the year experience depressive symptoms in the winter or summer, spring or autumn year after year. In the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV), SAD is not a unique mood disorder, but is “a specifier of major depression”.

Cause of Seasonal Affective Disorder

Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is prevalent when vitamin D stores are typically low. Your brain is first in line to detect the early symptoms of vitamin D deficiency, in the form of severe fatigue. Initially, you feel exhausted a lot of the time in late winter. The medical term for this is seasonal affective disorder (SAD) or seasonal depression. But sometimes SAD persists. If suppressed D levels of wintertime were what led to your fatigue, the symptoms start piling up when the tiredness doesn’t go away. Your mood sags, your sleep quality suffers, and the progression steadily worsens. Your behavior doesn’t go unscathed, either. Then you lose sleep and feel grouchy, you’re not going to deliver stellar performances on a personal or a professional level.

How do you know, if you have SAD?

There are two significant changes that confirm that you may be suffering from seasonal affective disorder:

1 – Reluctance to do any kind of physical activity; and

2 – Lack of enjoyment when you do things that used to please you.

Other important signals are:

A deflated attitude toward doing things is the first red flag. Medically it is called as psychomotor retardation, a term for an overall lack of motivation to pursue activities that require you to be physical. The general thought process reflects a low mood.

A downward spiral in your general happiness level is another important signal. Things you used to enjoy doing now simply sound like too much work. This is called anhedonia, and in some peoples this state can go on and on for years. You feel too bad to do anything, which makes you tired; you’re tired, so you don’t want to do anything. This vicious cycle can be endless if you fail to realize that a lack of vitamin D may be behind all your troubles.

How deficiency of vitamin D leads to Seasonal Affective Disorder?

It is a well-known fact that the deficiency of serotonin in brain causes depression. You need to have sufficient serotonin to handle stress and to feel content.

Chronic vitamin D deficiency affects your mood in a big way. You get more sun and consume more fruits and vegetables in the summer, which raises your vitamin D and calcium absorption levels and increases your magnesium and serotonin production. You’re going along great, feeling good, mood elevated; but then winter comes and your vitamin D level falls. Your serotonin production and calcium and magnesium levels decline, too, and these changes depress your mood.

The longer your winter, the more pronounced the seasonal variations in serotonin production. If you live in higher altitudes like Kashmir, you suffer longer, more drawn-out mood plunges compared to someone in Delhi, who gets more D simply because he or she lives in a place that has one season (a sunny one)—if this person takes the time to get outside in the sunlight.

Research tells us that a lack of vitamin D makes us ache. Symptoms that point to vitamin D deficiency are muscle spasms, bone pain, and joint pain. When Mayo Clinic researchers looked at the vitamin D level of patients who had unexplained widespread musculoskeletal pain for a long time, they found that 93 percent had vitamin D deficiency. Some of these people then took vitamin D and calcium supplements regularly, and the result was a dramatic resolution of their pain, fatigue, and muscle cramps.

What are possible prevention and treatment measures?

Getting a good amount of sunshine on your bare uncovered skin for 15 to 20 minutes a day generates enough vitamin D under your skin to prevent seasonal affective disorder and various other problems. In case of deficiency vitamin D (Astrocal 6 lac injection) along with calcium supplements (Astrocal tablets) are recommended to increase the levels of calcium and vitamins d in your body to prevent and/or treat seasonal affective disorder.

–  Gurdeep Singh