Lesser-Known Side Effects of Chronic Pain

Living with pain, day in and day out, can take its toll on your life in ways that extend far beyond the discomfort. About one in five adults in the United States is living with chronic pain, which is pain that lasts for three months or more. Most of these people would concur that pain is just the beginning.

At Florida Pain Management Institute, Drs. Adam Shestack, Cy Blanco, Joshua Powers, and our team of medical professionals understand the devastating impact that chronic pain can have on your life.

In the following, we review how chronic pain can quickly hijack your health and well-being and what we can do to help.

Pain and your mental health

One of our primary areas of concern when it comes to patients who are dealing with chronic pain is the impact the condition can have on their mental health.

When your body is in pain, it’s in a stress state, which can heighten anxiety. On top of that, your brain undergoes changes when you’re in constant pain, and these changes can favor mood regulation issues like depression.

While the exact cause-and-effect mechanisms have yet to be identified, studies show that 35% to 45% of people with chronic pain develop depression.

Even if you don’t show clinical signs of anxiety or depression, pain can certainly temper your happiness and put you in a bad mood more often than not.

Pain and your quality of life

As if chronic pain weren’t bad enough, more than 7% of adults in the US report high-impact chronic pain that interferes with their ability to function. This means that people with this type of pain struggle to work or to participate in activities they once enjoyed.

It would be hard to overestimate the effects that this type of pain can have on quality of life as people are forced into smaller worlds with less interaction.

Pain and other areas of your health

Let’s say that your chronic pain is due to a back issue that you’ve been struggling with for years. Before the back pain, you used to get out and play pickleball with friends, which gave you a good deal of exercise each week. Now, it’s all you can do to walk to the mailbox.

While this is just one scenario, you can plug in your own. Whatever activity you’re missing out on because of pain, the sedentary lifestyle that you’ve been forced into is to the detriment of other areas of your health, such as your joint and cardiovascular health.

Get help

Our goal in outlining the many ways chronic pain can impact your life is to underscore the benefits of seeking our help. We specialize in pain management, and we’re sure we can help you find a way to break free from the prison that pain has formed around your life.

To reclaim your life from chronic pain, make an appointment with our compassionate and knowledgeable team at Florida Pain Management Institute today to get the relief you need.