Sun Lamps & Seasonal Affective Disorder

Video Transcript

"Hi I'm Dr. David Thomas. I'm a practicing psychotherapist with the Whitford Thomas Group in Tampa, Florida here to discuss sun lamps and Seasonal Affective Disorder. Seasonal Affective Disorder's acronym is SAD. It is a disorder that is very similar to depression, clinical depression. It just tends to isolate itself during the time of the year as Winter and is often times referred to as the Winter blues due to the fact of kind of a some more than likely a chemical or neurological deficit in the system that gets triggered by the lack of sunlight or the lack of good weather. So Seasonal Affective Disorder how would you treat that? Well certainly antidepressants are one way to treat Seasonal Affective Disorder. You know we are talking about sun lamps. Certainly I wouldn't suggest that an individual treat themselves with a sun lamp. I am assuming sun lamp meaning these tanning booth type sun lamps and that but they do use light therapy to treat Seasonal Affective Disorder but I would encourage you to seek out a professional who has expertise in that and what I think what we have found generally speaking in the literature with light therapy to treat SAD or Seasonal Affective Disorder is that it is not just a one time shot it is something that you have got to continue to be kind of exposed to for a significant period of time and light therapy is certainly one of the treatments that we use for Seasonal Affective Disorders along with antidepressants so seek out a professional. Don't attempt to do that on your own or certainly if you do attempt to do that on your own and you are not getting the results fairly quickly I would encourage you to make an appointment with the psychiatrist or another professional who certainly understands light therapy. Well I hope this information has been helpful to you. From Tampa, Florida I'm Dr. David Thomas."