Can Chronic Pain Increase with Depression?
What is the link between chronic pain and mental health? The two are more closely related then you would imagine. In fact, up to 85% of people with a chronic pain condition develop clinical depression. The reverse is also true, up to 65% of those with depression can develop chronic pain. Mental health and chronic pain go hand in hand, one effecting the other. Counseling and coping techniques can help improve not only mental health, but also help lessen chronic pain symptoms.
Personally I believe, even though pain in life might be inevitable, suffering doesn’t have to be. And through counseling we can help you figure out how to really learn those skills, tips, and tricks so that your life is more under your control.
Since 2016 the CDC guidelines have included behavior health services as a crucial part of chronic pain care. More research is showing the links between our mental and physical health. How one affects the other causing a cycle to occur when we don’t take care of both.
Jennifer Sander, Chronic Pain Counseling Specialist
Jennifer Sander, is a licensed professional counselor, and certified clinical trauma professional working here in Arizona. She specializes in working with those who have chronic pain and those who love them. Whenever somebody’s body is no longer working the way they’d hoped, she wants to help them increase the quality of their life; as well as their family and friends who might be effected.
In 2021 alone, over 52 million people in the US alone were diagnosed with a chronic pain condition. That’s over 20 percent of people’s family, friends, and neighbors around you impacted by chronic pain. We know through research and through experience when somebody’s going through a chronic pain episode, depression goes hand in hand. In fact up to 85% of people with a chronic pain condition develop clinical depression. The flip side is also true, when somebody is diagnosed with depression up to two-thirds will develop a chronic pain condition at some time in their lives. This is more probable if they don’t learn to effectively cope with that depression.
How Mental Health Affects Chronic Pain
The research of chronic pain and mental health correlating is exciting right now. It’s fascinating because let’s say for example there’s tissue damage in your feet. The nerves in your feet send pain signals to your spinal cord. This signal goes up the spinal cord into your brain. Once in the brain the signal doesn’t just light up the pain centers of your brain. It lights up other areas of your brain as well. Your hippocampus, the memory storage, is going to be lit up. Where things that you weren’t thinking of pop into your brain. The limbic system controlling our emotions might become deregulated. You might feel tears below the surface of your face, unable to control why they’re occurring. Fear, the amygdala part of your brain goes through the roof. Because when your foot is hurting you, your brain might jump and catastrophize to “Oh no, is this condition coming back.”
When these areas light up in response to chronic pain a mental spiral happens. All these responses can choke your brain’s bandwidth, short circuiting it. Compromising the prefrontal cortex of your brain that helps you with regular daily functioning, planning ahead, weighing pros and cons, and decision making. This happens because your brain is so busy trying to mitigate everything else it’s unable to focus.
It also works in reverse. You’re experiencing a low pain day, but something happens in your personal life, and your emotions erupt, or your memory gets triggered, it can actually speak to the pain part of your body and cause a pain flareup. Learning coping strategies when you feel deregulated and the pain pathway is triggered can help you ctrl+alt+delete and say “we’re not going to do that today body.” Coping strategies can help you take more control over the quality of your life.
Counseling and Chronic Pain Symptoms
The research shows in a chronic pain condition often times people lose their sense of identity, their optimism, their sense of control. Through counseling we can help you learn more skills so you can regain an optimistic point of view. The skills learned in counseling can get quality of your life goes where you wish for it to be.
When someone has a chronic pain condition, they might feel out of control not only in how their body is functioning, but also their spirit and mind. If your body feels out of control, you might find your emotions are all over the place. You might feel short tempered. Things you use to have a lot of patience for, now might really get under your skin. And it makes perfect sense with what’s going on in your mind.
Also for people who love you, going through that experience, their roles have likely changed in the home. They might have to pick up more tasks around the house, and help with financial kinds of commitments as well. There’s a grief and a loss incurred by everyone whenever somebody has a chronic pain condition. Essentially life isn’t what you thought it would be like at this stage. So through counseling we can help you figure out how to get more control over the quality of your life again, so that you can have the quality of life that you wanted.
Sandstone Counseling and Consultation
With services at Sandstone Counseling and Consultation, Jennifer Sander’s private practice, they serve all of Arizona. Counseling sessions are solely through Zoom. That way if it’s a bad pain day you don’t have to drive to an office for an appointment. This is to make counseling the most convenient to work for you. Sessions can be during your lunch hour. And the length can be as short or long as needed. The most important thing getting your needs met, in a way that fits for you.
Jennifer approaches counseling is as a partnership. You do the work together, she wont tell you how to live your life. She works with you to figure out what’s most important you. How do you define quality of life? What areas do you want to work on? Can she help you get there? Only you are the expert on yourself. Together, you will find what works to help you meet your goals. Similarly, she will collaborate with other people in your life you want to be a part of your sessions. Your medical team, family and friends, coworkers, etc are all people you can invite to your sessions.
Not only is Jennifer trained in chronic pain counseling, she’s also a chronic pain patient. She sees chronic pain from both sides of the desk, as both the therapist and as the patient. Her hope is through her professional experience and expertise, as well as her own experience she can help you attain the quality of life you want even if you live with chronic pain.
