Doctor

[lovechild777]

So I went to my doctor today and talked to her about how I've been feeling lately, she told me I was severely depressed but did not prescribe any medication. She told me to write, do something i enjoy and excercise for 20 mins a day each. But I'm seeing her Monday aswell, and I'm pretty certain none of this will work. Is she just holding off on prescribing or does she just not think I've tried hard enough to beat it without meds? Cause God knows I have. I just don't see any other options anymore.

[Thurineth]

She probably wants you to do this see if it will increase your mood a bit first.

Sounds as useless and my previous doctor though who prescribed anti-deppressants and I'm NOT depressed.

[Lizzie]

Actually exercise has proven to be considered extremely effective when it comes to dealing with depression. And is much safer and healthier then just taking medication right away. There are little studies done with teenagers and anti-depressants, so the long term side effects are really unknown. I think the fact that your doctor is trying to get you to try something else, before using medication, is really fantastic. I wish all doctors took that time and care instead of just dishing out medication left and right.
Check out some information on depression and exercise:

Exercise and Depression
Exercise and Depression
Exercise ‘Therapy’ For Depression

[Batman.]

I agree with Lizzie. Doctors are usually too rushed into shoving people on medications, and from what I've seen, alot of the time they prescribe things not needed. Like my brother's girlfriend who claims to have anxiety but doesn't, her doctor didn't check thoroughly enough and put her on medications.

And before anyone gets skeptical on me, she tried to tell my family that her and my brother didn't see us for a month because she had anxiety so bad she couldn't leave the house. HOWEVER, she was leaving the house to see anyone else, including getting take-out food almost every night, and some of the places she went to she had to travel by city bus. She rarely cooks at home. She was also still going out for coffee and everything else. REAL reason she didn't want to see us was because her and my brother wanted to get married, and when she changed the date last-minute to 1 1/2 months earlier and my mom said "No", she was having a hissy fit.

Anyways... Also, I had a friend who tried to claim ADHD because, well, she likes snorting Ritalin to try and get a high. She's not in school and never had concentration problems when she was. Her doctor prescribed her Concerta, probably because of the fact Concerta is not easy to crush and snort. So, she claimed the medication didn't work and never went back to the doctor after that. So obviously her "ADHD" that she apparently never had until after she started snorting Ritalin wasn't THAT bad. She even tried to say to me that the other stuff didn't work because she HAS to snort her medication. Which makes no sense, when I asked my friend who has had ADHD since he was a little kid.

Oh gosh, I'm wandering here. My point was, doctors are much too quick to shove pills at people, and medications can have side effects, from mild to severe. And yet, as has been said, exercise is shown to help with depression. So I mean, if you and your doctor can figure something out that doesn't require over-medicating, more power to you. In fact, there have been threads here speaking of the side effects of different medications that users on here have personally experienced.