Living with depression is a daily struggle for many people. An estimated 16 million Americans are affected each year, and one in six Americans will experience depression at some point in their life, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
There are options for managing depression, including therapy and antidepressant medications. In the past few decades, more clinicians and their patients have turned to antidepressant medications, and prescriptions soared by 400 percent between late 1988 and 2008. Before the pandemic, 13.2 percent of U.S. adults took antidepressants.
Antidepressants offer many patients relief, but others report side effects, including feeling emotionally numb. Researchers call it "emotional blunting." They're still learning how it's caused and what it might mean in the long term.
A patient is diagnosed with major depressive disorder (MDD) after meeting five of nine symptoms in a two-week period, according to the fifth edition of the ...
