Depression better after surgery?

How do you feel surgery has effected depression if you had it in the past?  Has it gotten better, stayed the same, or gotten even worse?  Have you been able to stop taking medication if you were?  I am hoping that the surgery will reduce my chances of future episodes of depression...thank you to anyone who can add any info!

I am only 3 months out. I have found that it has been better. My medication hasn't changed yet but I am hopeful that one day it will. I have found with my increase in exercise, my anxiety has gone down. I spoke to my doc, and he said that the increase in exercise is using up some of my excess energy that was manifesting as anxiety. All the best.

Thank you Corinna!  I have found that exercise helps me so much too but I have a knee injury that limits my movement so it is really hard.  I am hoping surgery will help my knee or that I will be able to get surgery.

I went through a rough patch after surgery with depression and it took my p-doc and I a number of months to tweak things to get them better. Surgery is not a guaranteed cure all for depression

Do you feel that the surgery helps to prevent depression directly or indirectly?  My depression is linked to hormones so I am hoping that it will help normalize things as much as possible.

The chemical imbalance in my brain was initially made worse by the hormones that were released when I was rapidly losing weight. I can't remember the exact medical terms but basically when you lose a lot of weight your estrogen levels can go skyrocketing and that can make depression worse for a time.

That being said my depression was not caused or made worse by being fat. The rapid weight loss after surgery made it worse for a time. I'm well under control now and on a med ****tail that is very effective and along with that I get supportive counseling. I exercise regularily  as well and was also doing regular yoga.

You may or may not experience what I did after surgery - each of us have different causes for our depression.

I have PCOS and when I lose any weight I have horrible problems with estrogen - I have my period continually for a year or more.  Makes it even harder to lose because as soon as I gain my period will normalize.  My endo says it is the same as you said, a release of estrogen into the body causes all sorts of issues.  How long did it take you to after surgery to get things under control? Do you have any issues taking meds due to malabsortion etc.?

Probably took a year to 18 months to get things stablized. I went through a number of drug "****tails" til we found one that worked. Not sure if malabsorption played into things or not.

Not meaning to scare you or take your hope away. Just better to not to go  in with unrealistic expectations.

My uneducated guess is you might be in for bumpy ride but in the end it will be well worth it.

When I had my appointments with the SW she told me " You do realize" that your depression will not go away? This is surgery for weight loss, it has nothing to do with depression, anxiety or any other mental illness. Makes sense, they are not operating on your head. But if exercising helps some, all the best to them. Good Luck!