The association between pain and depression and anxiety

  Many patients, whether they are seen in the general department or the psychiatry department, mainly suffer from unexplained physical discomfort, commonly pain, including headache, pain in the trunk area, pain in the limbs and gastrointestinal area, or unspecified physical discomfort, such as numbness, air movement, electric current, distension, alternating hot and cold sensations, etc. Sensory perceptual disorders are very prominent and difficult to relieve, and patients are in great pain, often Patients are often distressed and suffer from distress, temper tantrums, dislike of noise, restlessness, crying, fatigue, loss of appetite, insomnia and other symptoms.  It is more common in women and has more onset after middle age. It is misunderstood as menopause syndrome or so-called “endocrine disorder”, which has been treated by multiple departments and taken numerous medications, but no effect. In fact, this unexplained “pain” may be one of the symptoms of depression and anxiety.  Depression and anxiety is a common psychiatric disorder, a multi-factorial psychological disorder that can occur at any age, with biological and psychosocial factors intertwined with depression or anxiety, and when such negative emotions appear, they not only manifest as low mood, decreased interest, lack of pleasure, lack of motivation or easy fatigue, insomnia, poor sleep, pessimism, or appear upset, fear, easy tension, anxiety In addition to symptoms such as anxiety, restlessness, etc., somatic pain is very prominent and may persist even at the beginning or throughout the entire period of illness. In psychiatry, it is a very common symptom that requires careful evaluation and exclusion of physical illnesses, but mainly depression and anxiety, but after relieving the symptoms of depression or anxiety, the pain is also very quickly relieved or disappears; from a biological point of view, pain and depression and anxiety have a common neurocentric mechanism, so when depressed or stressed, there will be varying degrees of physical discomfort, such as pain. The relationship between emotions and pain is best explained by the term “grief”, which means that when the emotion of “sadness” occurs, the feeling of “pain” will occur at the same time.  Therefore, when you have persistent pain and no positive evidence is found in the comprehensive examination, you may want to observe and self-judge your emotional state, and if you feel depression or anxiety, you should seek help from a psychiatrist for further clinical diagnosis and treatment as soon as possible to avoid delaying the best time for treatment.