27/07/2020
Pain getting you down? We feel you…and so will most of the earth’s population at some point in their lives.
Pain triggers an emotional response in everyone: mostly mild irritability and frustration. These are completely normal feelings and this stressful response usually stops as the pain subsides.
But what if the pain lasts weeks, months or even years? Your pain gets worse and worse as changes in your body leave you more sensitive to pain causing you to hurt in places that used to feel fine before. What if the mild irritability leads to overwhelming hopelessness?
It was once thought that the link between pain, anxiety and depression was mainly psychological. In other words: it’s all in our heads. But as research has grown, we gained a better understanding of how the brain works and how the brain and the nervous system interacts with the rest of the body. We now know that pain shares some biological mechanisms with anxiety and depression. Neither pain or depression has a singular pathophysiology. Chronic pain and the stress response it leads to disrupts your body’s natural chemical balance which can lead to depression in some individuals.
But why should we care about this link? The answer is that comorbidity (the co-existence of disease in one person) among chronic pain, mood disorders, anxiety disorders, sleep disorders, cognitive impairment, fatigue, and chronic stress presents an enormous clinical challenge. What came first: The chicken or the egg? Did depression and anxiety cause your chronic pain or did your chronic pain lead to depression and anxiety? Physical and mental health go hand in hand and by addressing both, you can take control of your well-being and that is what we need to understand and focus on.
Here at Physio by Lani, we are focussed on treating the patient holistically and would love to get you back to feeling like your old self. We are so passionate about how good biomechanics and an active lifestyle can help you, not just physically, but mentally as well. You can get help before your symptoms worsen and treatment can help you enjoy life again. It’s never too late to start.
