Contents
What is neurasthenia?
Neurasthenia is a dystrophic lesion of the peripheral nerves associated with the depletion of the nervous system (combines various types of pathological changes in the functions of the nervous system). This disease is a type of neurosis, meaning non-psychotic disorders that occur after a person has been in a stressful situation for a long time.
Causes of neurasthenia
In the development of neurasthenic disorders, a number of reasons of a different nature play an important role, such as the influence of intoxication, a lack of vitamins in the body, impaired immune defense, tumor processes, and many others. Often this disease develops with diabetes mellitus. But basically, the underlying causes lie in the discrepancy between mental capabilities.
The disease can be provoked by mental and physical stress, experiences.
Excessive loads on the nervous system do not allow you to relax and rest. Lack of rest leads to overload, resulting in severe exhaustion of the nervous system (distress). Companions of neurasthenia are irritability, chronic fatigue. Neurosis occurs in people in the period from 20 to 40 years, men are more likely to be ill than women.
Neurasthenia has several forms:
1) The hypersthenic form is expressed by increased mental excitability. In patients, irritation can be caused by the slightest trifle, such as noise, loud conversation, music. It is difficult for them to be in crowded places. They are characterized by impatience, uncontrollable self-control. All this affects the ability to work, mental disorder appears, a person becomes distracted, attention decreases. In this state, it is impossible to focus on anything. Sleep is disturbed.
2) Irritable weakness – a form of neurasthenia, manifested in patients with unrestrained, choleric temperament. This form can appear with a strong and balanced nervous system when the pathogenic situation does not change and there is no recovery at the stage of hypersthenia. In this case, patients can get down to business, but they quickly get tired, they have a headache, they do not think well, they feel nervous weakness, impotence. So fatigue alternates with an attempt to resume working capacity, a feeling of nervous exhaustion sets in. Irritability can be pronounced, a person screams, but such a reaction and excitement are replaced by mental impotence quickly, resentment appears and everything ends in tears.
3) The hyposthenic form, occurs in persons with a weak central nervous system with increased mental fatigue, in suspicious, people who are often visited by anxious thoughts. They are irritable, physically and mentally weak. Lethargy, sadness, decreased mood, indifference, tearfulness and emotional instability are manifestations of a neurotic nature in the hyposthenic form.
Symptoms of neurasthenia
The very first sign of the development of neurasthenia is insomnia. Violation of night sleep, when a person falls asleep with difficulty, or wakes up many times and falls asleep again, sees disturbing dreams, and in the morning barely gets up with a bad mood, with a migraine. Complaints include general malaise, poor memory, and discomfort.
Patients react extremely emotionally to bright light, they experience an increase or decrease in body temperature, interruptions in heart rate, intestinal sensitivity, decreased libido, and impotence may occur in men. Today it is generally accepted that neurasthenia is depression. Its manifestations are increased excitability, depressed mood, uncertainty.
Symptoms of the disease are variable and varied pain sensations, light pressure, constriction, tingling in the temporal and occipital region, a feeling of heaviness in the head and anxiety. The appearance of pain along the ridge, in the trunk, in the limbs with sudden movements of the head or body, the occurrence of noise and ringing in the ears, dizziness, soreness of the skin are the most serious symptoms confirming the development of pathology.
Diagnostics
Diagnosis of neurasthenia is not a difficult process. Usually such a diagnosis can be made according to the description of the patient’s condition. Violent emotional outbursts, reactions of irritability, agitated behavior for no reason, fussiness and impatience, always sudden and quickly fading away, are good reasons to accurately determine the type of nervous breakdown.
Advanced stages of the disease lead to gloominess, lethargy, drowsiness, loss of appetite. The doctor can make a medical opinion on the patient’s complaints about the phenomenon of heartburn, belching, bloating, heaviness in the gastrointestinal tract.
Treatment
In the treatment of neurasthenia, methods of physiotherapy, reflexology are successfully used, massage is applied, and a diet is prescribed. The main most effective methods of treatment are suggestion and hypnosis. It is also very good for the patient to develop the skills of positive thinking, to learn to recognize and control actions and deeds.
Comprehensive treatment of neurasthenia, the use of biostimulants, neurotropic drugs, antidepressants should be strictly individual. Doctors are guided not only by the clinical form of neurosis, but also by the stage of the disease and the personality characteristics of the person who has undergone the disease. The age of the patient is taken into account, because such a disease can occur at any age.
Treatment should be combined with proper rest, temporary exclusion of mental work. In some cases, sedatives are prescribed. Usually, patients with neurasthenia need daily walks in the fresh air, they feel the need to replenish iron in the body, so it is recommended to take preparations containing this important element. Calcium glycerophosphate and the method of autogenic training contribute to the rapid restoration of the functions of the nervous system.
Prevention of neurasthenia
The main place among the preventive measures that prevent the appearance of neurasthenia is the observance of the daily regimen, good sleep, the prevention of emotional overstrain, the use of special vitamin complexes designed to strengthen the immune system.