Chronic Pain and Mental Health: Exploring the Connection

When you live with debilitating pain each and everyday, the struggle is more than just the physicality of the pain itself. It ripples through every part of your life. It slowly robs you of your hobbies, isolates you from social connections, and can deteriorate your zest for life. But it doesn’t have to be this way. There are safe options to manage severe pain, allowing you to get back to living the life you love.

The Struggle of Living with Chronic Pain

Chronic pain seeps into every aspect of your life. If you struggle with bone-deep pain each and every day, you already know this too well. You try everything possible to find solace from aches, throbs, stings, spasms. From the moment you wake up, to the moment you shut your eyes at night… you wish the pain would just subside. 

Too many of you are navigating through life like this (as if there aren't enough challenges and hoops to jump through). Chronic pain’s grip is so tight, it starts to become your life. It holds you back until it is all you have left. 

It’s normal to feel frustrated that the activities you never thought twice about now seem daunting, or even impossible at times. The indescribable loneliness of having to miss important events, activities, and social events with the people you love is more than just ‘the fear of missing out.’ It’s a type of isolation that unless you’ve been struggling with chronic pain, you can’t fully understand.

Watching others move through the world so effortlessly feels so emotionally taxing and triggering. All of these feelings are overwhelmingly real – though likely they’ve been invalidated at some point. Either by people around you who just don’t fully understand what it’s like to live like this, or doctors who give you solutions that don’t really feel like solutions at all.

And speaking of doctors, our bet is you’ve seen a slew of them. Often the same messaging: offering expensive and risky prescriptions, or giving you band-aid fixes. None of the solutions really address the underlying problem, only the symptoms. 

It might seem like you have to go under the knife, hoping surgery is your answer. You likely have been weighing if pain relief is worth risking addiction to heavy pain killers for the rest of your life. Or, another huge question: can I even afford to not be in pain? 

No one should have to make these decisions or answer these questions. No one should be risking their bodies and lives to just feel like their normal selves. You deserve to move through life pain-free without having these stressors. 

We see your struggle. We know you don’t have to live like this. We are dedicated to helping you reclaim your life.

How Chronic Pain Affects Mental Health

When everyday is relentless agony, it can propel you into a state of desperation and a dooming sense of hopelessness. It's not uncommon for those of you suffering from chronic pain to sink into a deep depression or also struggle with anxiety. In fact, studies show that up to 85% of people who are suffering from chronic pain are also struggling with severe depression. 

There is a complex web of reasons that factor into this. Some of them are due to the heavy emotions you feel when you suffer through chronic pain. Some are more physiological, but it is important to know that there is overlap due to the mind-body connection. Here are the top three ways that chronic pain affects mental health:

Stress and Cortisol

Chronic pain is both a physical and psychological burden that activates our survival mode. This system is meant to protect you in acute situations, but when you're continually in pain, it stays triggered. When it is triggered, the stress hormone cortisol is released. Cortisol interacts with many body systems, such as your immune response, digestion, and metabolism. 

Us humans haven't evolved as much as we think, a section of our brains remains primitive. When your body gets a hit of cortisol, it registers this as danger. This happens even if you aren't directly in a life-or-death situation. It temporarily reduces your digestion, metabolism, and immune responses, redirecting the energy to get to perceived safety. So, when your body is flooded with cortisol daily, your essential systems never fully are engaged. This holds back healing, absorbing nutrients to nourish your body and more. 

Long periods with elevated cortisol can also alter brain function. This happens particularly in regions associated with mood and emotion, such as the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex. These changes lower the threshold for stress even further and can lead to heightened anxiety. Even minor stressors seem insurmountable. 

Over time, the body may also become resistant or addicted to cortisol. This can dampen its ability to regulate inflammation and immune responses, potentially deeping the pain itself. This cycle creates a feedback loop where pain heightens cortisol levels, which in turn can worsen pain perception, anxiety, and depression.

Neurotransmitter Disruption

Living with chronic pain day in and day out disrupts the delicate balance of your neurotransmitters. These are chemical messengers that relay signals between neurons in the brain and the rest of the body. Two key neurotransmitters affected are serotonin and dopamine. Both are essential for mood regulation and influence pain perception and processing.

Serotonin is associated with a sense of well-being and happiness. It helps regulate mood, appetite, and sleep cycles. A lack of serotonin is linked to heavy feelings of depression and anxiety. This decrease makes the nervous system more sensitive to pain signals (known as central sensitization) which worsens how painful your pain feels.

Dopamine is the body's built-in reward system. It is involved in motivation, joy, and motor control. Chronic pain can sap dopamine levels, leading to a reduced ability to feel pleasure—a state known as anhedonia. A lack of dopamine can shift the sense of reward from activities you once loved, contributing to a lack of motivation and an overall feeling of emptiness or sadness.

When there is a disruption to these neurotransmitters, it's a challenging environment for your brain to maintain emotional stability. The imbalance impairs the brain's ability to filter pain signals properly, making you more susceptible to even more stress. It creates another cycle, sinking you deeper into an unhealthy mental space. 

Sleep Disruption

Pain doesn't sleep, and it keeps you from doing so, too. Quality sleep is essential for the body's ability to repair tissues, consolidate memories, and remove toxins from your brain. Sleep disruptions prevent you from entering sleep phases such as slow-wave sleep and REM sleep, required for emotional regulation and mood stabilization.

One of the brain's cleansing systems, the glymphatic system, is active during sleep and clears metabolic waste. Disrupted sleep compromises its function, allowing toxins to accumulate. These toxins degrade cognitive function and your brain's ability to rewire itself in response to positive stimuli.

Sleep is a prime time for the brain to consolidate memories and learning from the day. When you try positive activities, your brain creates new neural pathways so you can retain them (called neural plasticity). When you can't sleep, your brain isn't able to solidify these pathways as it normally would. It restricts the retention of new skills or habits that can support your mental health, such as meditation, gratitude, and positive thinking.

Lacking quality sleep impairs the prefrontal cortex, an area responsible for decision-making and moderating social behavior. This impairment results in increased irritability, difficulty concentrating, and a decreased threshold for pain. 

During sleep, the body's cells increase their production of proteins, which are needed for tissue repair and growth. Not sleeping properly hinders this process, slowing recovery and making it more challenging to manage pain. 

This cyclical relationship between pain and sleep creates yet again, another feedback loop. Chronic pain wreaks havoc on your sleep, which in turn worsens pain perception and emotional distress. 

It’s another challenging cycle to break. As sleep disturbances continue, the risk of developing mood disorders such as anxiety and depression increases since the brain is denied the opportunity to reset and recover.

Scrambler Therapy: Safe and Cost Effective Chronic Pain Relief 

Living with chronic pain can feel dooming, like being trapped without an exit. Traditional treatments often come with a host of side effects and financial burdens, making the pursuit of relief as distressing as the pain itself. This is where Scrambler Therapy, the ST-5A model, comes in. It's a solution grounded in the latest technology and a true understanding of pain management.

Scrambler Therapy works by sending non-painful electrical signals through the skin to the brain, mimicking the body's natural nerve impulses. This 're-educates' the brain, teaching it to reinterpret the distressing pain signals from areas of chronic pain as “normal”, pain-free messages. It targets the root of pain perception in the nervous system, providing tangible and lasting relief without the need for risky drugs, invasive procedures, or never-ending medical bills. 

If you are ready to return to the activities and life you love, free from the shadow of chronic pain, talk to your doctor now about accessing Scrambler Therapy – a safe, effective, and affordable pain management solution.