When this 54-year-old woman began suffering from depression, exhaustion, and apathy, she figured it was psychological.
She also couldn’t make decisions, and was unable to get a good night’s sleep.
So like anyone would, she went to the doctor, who prescribed her with antidepressants and anti-anxiety medication.
However, instead of helping, it appeared to make things worse.
She began to have suicidal thoughts, and began to berate herself for not being effective enough at her job.
She had no history of mental illness in her family, but doctors dismissed this, saying that the several stressful events in her life could have been the cause.
After five months, she decided the medication wasn’t working, and stopped taking it.
Doctors became even more perplexed. That’s when they performed a brain scan, desperate to get to the bottom of her case.
The brain scan revealed something the doctors had never even considered.
She had a giant meningioma—a non-cancerous brain tumor—in the front left of her brain.
Emergency surgery was performed immediately. Her depression was gone immediately.
Believe it or not, this isn’t the first time it’s happened. Psychiatric problems, like depression, mania, anxiety disorders, eating disorders, and hallucinations, can be symptoms of brain tumor, even if there aren’t any other symptoms.
Of course, it’s unrealistic to give every patient of depression or psychiatric disorder a brain scan.
If a person has a brain tumor, they’re also likely to show other symptoms like changes in personality, weakness in one side of the body, and loss of sense of smell. More common symptoms include headaches, nausea, drowsiness, blurred vision, and seizures.
