New research presented at the American Academy of Pain Medicine 2020 Annual Meeting found a significant connection between patients with chronic pain and borderline personality disorder (BPD).
Results of a systemic review found that nearly 1 in 4 patients with chronic noncancer pain had some features of borderline personality disorder, including mood instability and difficultly maintaining relationships.
“The fact that one fourth of individuals with CNCP could have co-occurring BPD underscores the need for improved access to good psychological care,” lead investigator Fei Cao, MD, PhD, University of Missouri at Kansas City, told Medscape Medical News in an interview.
Chronic Pain and BPD
For the study, Cao and colleagues reviewed 11 studies published between 1994 and 2019. During their investigation, they found that 23.3 percent of patients with chronic pain expressed traits of BPD. Some of the conditions that expressed BPD traits included:
- Chronic headaches (11.3%)
- Arthritis (27.5%)
- Chronic spinal cord pain (24.3%)
The biggest takeaway for Cao and his team was that doctors can’t just focus on chronic pain, there needs to be a comprehensive approach to total body wellness.
“The point of this research is that you cannot help these patients in the long-run if you only treat their pain. We also have to treat their BPD. This can then make pain easier to control,” said Cao. “If we treat the borderline personality disorder and address the psychiatric needs as well as the pain needs of the patient, then we will be able to treat their pain more successfully.”
Not everyone with chronic pain suffers from BPD, but this study speaks to how underlying conditions can oftentimes make chronic pain more difficult to treat. If we’re not treating the whole patient, treatment success can be undermined, especially when it’s a psychological component at play. Having healthy mental and emotional health can help to improve functional physical outcomes, and the opposite is also true. If we ignore our mental and emotional health, some of the treatments were’ trying for physical ailments may not be as successful because we’re not treating the totality of our issues.
Cao concluded by saying that physicians should consider screening patients with unresponsive chronic pain that may or may not be showing signs of BPD. Not only can it help the patient improve their mental health, but it may also help increase the success of current treatments for chronic pain.
So if you’ve been dealing with chronic pain and it’s affecting your mood or your mental state, reach out to a physical medicine specialist to get a comprehensive diagnosis and a treatment plan suited to your individual needs.