Tag Archives: chronic pain

Mental Illness and Chronic Pain: What is the Connection?

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Many people with chronic pain develop mental illness, such as depression or anxiety, as a result of their pain. This article, however, will discuss those who have mental illness onset before developing chronic pain.

Research Study

A 2022 study by Johnston and Huckins, found that almost all psychiatric conditions listed in the DSM-5 are associated with increased rates of chronic pain. (The DSM-5 is short for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition and is the standard reference book published by the American Psychiatric Association in 2013. It gives mental health experts clear lists of signs and symptoms to diagnose mental health conditions.)

The Connection Between Mind and Pain

While mental illness does not cause chronic pain directly, the two conditions are interconnected and the former can lower your pain threshold, amplify how your brain processes physical discomfort, and cause physical tension that results in persistent aches. Below are four ways the mind and pain can be connected:

  1. Shared Brain Pathways: Physical pain and emotional distress (such as anxiety and depression) process through overlapping neural circuits and chemical messengers in the brain.
  2. Altered Pain Perception: Conditions like depression can change how the central nervous system interprets signals, making ordinary physical sensations feel significantly more painful.
  3. Physical Tension and Stress: Chronic mental stress causes sustained muscle tension, leading to recurring physical discomfort like tension headaches or lower back pain.
  4. Sleep Disruption: Mental health disorders frequently disrupt sleep, and a lack of restorative sleep impairs the body’s natural ability to manage and recover from pain.

Is there hope for those who have mental illness and chronic pain?

Yes there is! Research shows that treating them together, rather than separately, can significantly improve daily life, lower distress, and reduce pain signals. This is often accomplished in the following ways:

  • Combined Medications: Certain medicines, such as specific antidepressants, help manage both chronic pain and mood disorders by targeting shared chemical messengers.
  • Targeted Talk Therapy: Approaches like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) teach practical skills to lower the nervous system’s threat response and change how the brain processes discomfort.
  • Multidisciplinary Care: Comprehensive pain rehabilitation programs bring medical, physical, and psychological experts together to build a single, manageable recovery plan.
  • Mind-Body Strategies: Mindfulness, gentle movement, and specialized nervous-system regulation techniques help break the cycle of ongoing physical and emotional stress.

Do you have mental illness and chronic pain? Have you found strategies that have worked to alleviate the symptoms of the chronic pain?

Give Me the Best Mental Health Blogs You Follow

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I started this blog in 2011 (or 2012. It has been so long I can’t remember for sure.) At first I was very active but as the years wore on I got away from posting regularly and reading other blogs as well.

I checked a year or two ago and found that the people I had formed relationships with here on WordPress are not active on their blogs anymore at all. I miss them even though we only conversed via comments on one another’s blogs.

I would like to get back to writing about mental health topics on a regular basis. The thing that makes it difficult is that I don’t want to make it like a diary and tell the details of my personal life, but strictly writing in a research article style doesn’t feel right either. I will have to work on finding a balance between the two.

I also want to form some new blogger relationships which will help me stay connected with the topics I am interested in. So, please give me some good recommendations for mental health WordPress blogs. And if you have one, all the better!

Thanks for being a subscriber to my site, Write into the Light.

Until next time,

WiL (she/her)

Bipolar Disorder and Chronic Pain

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The Bipolar-Pain Connection

According to recent research, about 14% of people with bipolar disorder experience migraines and another 24% experience some other form of chronic pain. That’s almost a third of people with bipolar disorder who are in some sort of serious pain!

In particular, migraines affect 1 in 7 persons with bipolar disorder, which is 3 times more likely than the general population. I’ve been living with chronic migraine for ten years now. Some days I feel like it’s a death sentence. Some days I wish that sentence was carried out. My doctors are still trying to figure out a way to decrease the frequency of my 8 to 12 migraines per month. Apparently, “bipolar disorder and migraines are multifactorial in etiology—there appear to be vascular, cellular, molecular, neurochemical (serotonergic and noradrenergic), and genetic (KIAA0564) components in common between bipolar disorder and migraine conditions.”

Pain and Mental Illness’s Affect on One Another

In general, people with mental illness who experience chronic pain tend to have worsening symptoms of their illness. Often doctors do not take seriously the complaints of physical pain from those individuals who have mental illness. A lot of times people with mental illness have increased sensitivity to pain because they are experiencing depression. Also, because they are experiencing symptoms of mental illness, many times people with mental conditions do not seek the medical care they need to address their physical pain. This leads to greater functional impairments, poorer quality of life, increased disability, and increased risk of suicide compared to those without pain.

Treatments that Address Pain and Mental Illness

Sometimes tricyclic antidepressants or other select antidepressants can be used to help minimize physical pain symptoms as well as address depression symptoms in some patients. Care needs to be taken in patients with bipolar disorder, however, due to the increased risk of triggering a manic episode in those who take antidepressants alone. Often times, a mood stabilizer will be used in conjunction with the antidepressant in these patients.

This is exactly the treatment I am currently receiving under the care of my physician. I am excited to see if it will decrease the frequency of my migraines while addressing my depression and anxiety symptoms at the same time.

Non-pharmaceutical treatments for physical pain and some mental illness symptoms can include things such as meditation, yoga, exercise, prayer, talk therapy, and diet modifications.

Work with your doctor to figure out what may be the best course of action for you. The most important thing is to not give up hope and to never give up trying to find a way out.