mental health chronic pain Archives - Minnesota Physical Medicine Blog

New research from the University of Arizona Health Sciences and published in the journal PAIN found that nearly five million Americans experienced the co-occurrence of chronic pain and a mental health condition like anxiety or depression, leading to functional limitations in their daily life.

As we’ve mentioned on the blog in the past, it’s not uncommon for chronic pain and a mental health condition to develop alongside one another because chronic pain can have a significant effect on your physical, mental and emotional health. If you are forced to miss social events, your career aspirations are limited or you simply find it hard to pull yourself out of bed in the morning because of physical pain, your mental health will also take a hit. For some, that manifests in the form of anxiety or depression.

In a review of data from 31,997 people who participated in the National Health Interview Survey, researchers found that that roughly 38.1 million Americans are dealing with a chronic pain condition, 9.6 million are dealing with a diagnosed mental health condition, and 4.9 million are dealing with co-occurring chronic pain and a mental health condition. Additionally, adults with chronic pain were roughly five times more likely to report anxiety or depression compared to adults without chronic pain.

“The study’s findings highlight an underappreciated population and health care need – the interdependency between mental health and chronic pain,” said the paper’s lead author Jennifer S. De La Rosa, PhD, director of strategy for the University of Arizona Health Sciences Comprehensive Pain and Addiction Center, which funded the study. ”This work is so exciting because it offers the opportunity to use team-based interdisciplinary approaches to medicine, leveraging what is known across disciplines to meet the needs of these individuals.”

Chronic Pain And Mental Health Conditions

Other important findings from the study include:

Nearly 70 percent of people with co-occurring symptoms reported limitations at work.
More than 55 percent of people with co-occurring symptoms reported difficulty taking part in social events
Nearly 44 percent of people with co-occurring symptoms said they had difficulty running errands alone
Among all U.S. adults living with unremitted anxiety or depression, the majority (55.6%) are people who also have chronic pain.

This study only further emphasizes the idea that you can’t simply focus on treating the physical aspects of a chronic pain condition. Pain weighs heavy on your mind, and if you’re only focused on the physical pain, you may find that your mental health is suffering.

Even if you don’t believe your mental health has been affected by a chronic pain, you need to be aware that you’re at a higher risk of certain mental health disorders. You need to trust your care to a provider who will give you the comprehensive care you need to tackle all aspects of your chronic pain condition. Dr. Cohn and his team have done that for years for other patients, and we’d be more than happy to put our experience to work for you. For more information, or for help with a different chronic issue, reach out to Dr. Cohn and his team today at (952) 738-4580.

The majority of people will deal with chronic or nagging pain at some point in their life, and new estimates suggest that 1 in 10 adults will be diagnosed with chronic pain every year. Even though these numbers are really high, as a society, we’re not doing a very good job of solving the problem of chronic pain.

Even when chronic pain is managed and controlled, it can lead to other issues. When you’re constantly dealing with physical pain, it can be mentally and emotionally exhausting, and the same can be said in the inverse. If you aren’t in the right mindset, it can be difficult to stay active and really work towards preventing chronic pain.

Recently, a new study decided to take a closer look at the connection between chronic pain and mental health – more specifically, depression and chronic pain. For their study, researchers out of the University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom examined physical and mental health assessments of more than 100,000 individuals.

Depression and Pain

After looking at the findings, researchers uncovered:

People who have partners with depression were more likely to experience chronic pain.

A person whose spouse was depressed had an 18.7 percent increased risk of suffering from chronic pain.

Also of note, having a parent with chronic pain increased a person’s likelihood of developing chronic pain by 38.4 percent.

“We hope our research will encourage people to think about the relationship between chronic pain and depression and whether physical and mental illnesses are as separate as some believe,” researchers wrote.

At the end of the day, this research shines a little more light on another potential avenue for chronic pain management. Sometimes we need to go beyond the root source of the pain and look at environmental and other contributing factors. If we can improve our mental health and the mental mindset of those around us, we might be able to reduce the number of people who have to battle chronic pain on a daily basis.