More About Depression in Chronic Pain Management

Written By: Dr. Stephen F. Grinstead, LMFT, ACRPS, CADC-II Date: July 9th, 2010. Topic: Member Blogs.

Depression is one of the common of coexisting disorders for someone living with chronic pain. Unfortunately, the depression can sabotage a chronic pain management plan and chronic pain can intensify depression. Another problem is when the depression doesn’t get identified and treated. Below I’m posting a brief list of things to do and things to avoid if you or someone you love is living with chronic pain and coexisting depression.

Common Depression Management Tools

Things to Do When You’re Depressed

Eliminate the use of alcohol and other drugs (other than appropriate prescriptions)

Eat a proper, well-balanced diet—also, use a good multivitamin daily

Obtain an adequate amount of sleep—if sleep is a problem discuss this with your doctor/therapist

Seek emotional support from friends and family

Focus on positive aspects of your life

Pace yourself, modify your schedule and set realistic goals

Eliminate or reduce unnecessary tasks so that your schedule is more manageable

Reduce or eliminate the use of nicotine, caffeine, and sugar

Consult with a physician if you are experiencing any medical problems

Consult with a dentist if you are experiencing any dental problems

Seek early intervention which may improve the severity of your depression

Things to Avoid When You’re Depressed

Don’t isolate

Don’t make long-term commitments or important decisions unless necessary

Don’t over-commit to activities which are too stressful or overwhelming

Don’t assume that things are hopeless—they’re not!

Don’t engage in emotional reasoning (e.g., “because I feel awful, my life is terrible”)

Don’t assume responsibility for events that are outside of your control

Don’t avoid treatment as a way of coping

Don’t push people away who are trying to help you

To learn more about depression and chronic pain management check out my article Depression Management with the Chronic Pain Patient that you can download for free on our Article page.

If you’d like to receive training for helping people with chronic pain and coexisting disorders, including addiction, I’m very excited to announce we are presenting my Addiction-Free Pain Management® Certification Training in Sacramento on August 5-7, 2010. To learn more about this 3 day 20 hour training and my other upcoming trainings you can check out our Calendar page.

You can learn more about the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System at our website www.addiction-free.com. If you or a loved one is undergoing chronic pain management, especially if you’re in recovery or believe you may have a medication or other mental health problem and you want to learn more effective chronic pain management tools, please go to our Publications page and check out my books; especially the Addiction-Free Pain Management® Recovery Guide: Managing Pain and Medication in Recovery. To purchase this book please Click Here.

To read the latest issue of Chronic Pain Solutions Newsletter please click here. If you want to sign up for the newsletter, please click here and input your name and email address. You will then recieve an autoresponse email that you need to reply to in order to finalize enrollment.

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