Question: I have Diabetes and sometimes feel hopeless and fatigued from all the issues involved with it. How can I feel better about myself?

I am sorry to hear about your issues.  Diabetes is a horrible disease, and has many implications on your health. 

Depressive symptoms and diabetic symptoms can go hand in hand.  Diabetics feel fatigued, can’t sleep, have migrating pain syndromes, have no interest in hobbies sometimes, and feel hopeless.  Those are symptoms of depression as well.

A recent journal article from the Archives of General Psychiatry reports that women who suffer from both diabetes and depression are twice as likely to die.  Talk about implications, these two together increases your mortality substantially.  In fact, many diabetics are probably not diagnosed as having depression.  

Diabetes brings people down because it is difficult to care for themselves, difficult to manage the disease.  This can lead to complications.  I always try to get a sense of how a diabetic patient is feeling, how is their energy, their sleep, their interest, feelings of hope, to make sure I’m not missing a depressed diabetic.

It is essential to discuss any symptoms of depression with your doctor.  It is possible to manage the symptoms, therefore increasing your quality of life.

We can effectively treat depression and diabetes together.  Most people have a stigma against depression and they shouldn’t.  It is a real disease with real implications.  It is simply an unbalance of chemicals in your brain, and that balance is a physical manifestation of your emotional state.  We can fix that imbalance; therefore help fix your emotions.