It is best to be prepared when meeting with your doctor for your depression problem. You may have a lot of questions that you want answers to but when the time to ask them comes, your mind might go blank. So prior to your appointment with your physician or therapist, you can sit down, calm your mind and determine what you’d like to discuss. Decide what you want to gain from the therapy or treatment and come equipped with questions as well as information
Listed below are some tips to make you better prepared when going for your therapist or doctor appointment.
Write down questions. The questions can be about specific things you desire to know about. Sometimes, the doctor may not be able to tell you all that you need to know about your depression so it’s best that you gain as much information as possible from your doctor by proactively writing down the questions you need to know.
Some of the questions you can ask your doctor include:
- Do any of the other therapies, supplements or herbs I am using interact with my medications?
- Does my depression entail the taking of medications?
- What are the medications you will prescribe for my condition?
- What are their risks and side effects?
- How frequent do I need to take those medications?
- Will they work quickly?
Some of the questions you can ask your therapist include:
- What type of procedure or approach will you adopt?
- What will be the aim(s) of the treatment?
- What are your expectations about me? Will you make me do certain tasks or assignments in between sessions?
- How frequent will our meetings be?
- Is this therapy long-term or short-term?
- If I pay privately, what then is the price for each session?
Keep a log or diary – Writing down your everyday mood changes in a diary, doing this can help a lot in correctly diagnosing your depression. You don’t need to be too specific, merely write down a few lines each day. Your entry can consist of:
- The specific doses of medications you’ve taken each day
- The amount or length of sleep you had the night before
- The things or events that occurred each day that has affected your mood
- Your present symptoms
- The way that you’re feeling that day
- You should then bring your diary with to your first appointment. You can show your diary to your therapist or doctor. If you keep on writing in your diary, after a few weeks or months, you may discover that there are patterns to your mood changes which you’ve never been aware of before.
You need to also mention to your doctor about the physical symptoms of your depression. Tell him if you’ve been suffering from sleep problems, stomach problems, pain and any other type of physical symptoms.
You can ask help from family members or friends asking them to accompany you especially when you feel anxious about your first appointment. Your friends or family may even report to your doctor or therapist symptoms that you were not aware of or have overlooked.