Chronic pain is a physical medical issue, as well as psychological issue. There is a cause and effect to everything, determine the cause should be the ultimate goal. Its your overall health that needs to be addressed when determining weather it is or isn't solely a psychological issue. There almost always is an overlying psychological issue when it comes to pain.

When were in pain we release endorphins to block the pain, sometimes resulting in the "fight or flight syndrome" and thats a way for us to cope. The mind is a wonderful thing when we are in a lot of pain it finds ways around it to achieve an ultimate goal. People have walked miles with broken limbs because they were stranded and needed help. Over coming there pain to make it. Rape victims will often go into dissociative episodes to escape the emotional as well as physical pain from there attack. The mind does amazing things to escape the pain.

While in a fight or flight state, or a dissociative state it causes psychological issues. Needing to psychologically take your self out of a situation causes your subconscious to believe thats what it needs to do when ever your in pain or danger, causing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder which is certainly a life long mental health issue.

The more pain your in the more endorphins, the more you get used to it the level of pain changes. There is a chart at the doctors office where you can rate your pain from 1-10, people with chronic pain feel that there on a different chart, and thats "for normal peoples pain". When your mind and body are used to something it seems like nothing.

Fibromyalgia has been said to be linked to Substance P in the spinal column out of whack causing a heightened sense of pain, rather then a psychological issue causing it. To little research is being done on Autism and behavioral issues in children. There is a common finding in children with both behavioral issues as well Autism known as Nodular Lymphoid Hyperplasia, (NHL). Its a nonspecific colitis found in the bowel, that can be extremely painful. When physicians treat this they find that many if not all of the issues in there children resolve. To think that many parents are putting their children on medication for behavioral issues when there really isn't any is a scary thought. A child way to cope with pain is to act out or to regress. So why cant an adult have pain and thats what is causing the psychological issue, after all we have way more experience at life to know what we should and shouldn't be doing.

I feel that chronic pain is the cause and mental health issues are the effect. Physician are way to quick to blame many health issues on mental health, anyone crying there in real pain and has none, has a psychological issue. Real pain doesn't require attention it requires medical intervention.

Anything that causes pain, will cause pain. How we deal with it is the psychological issue. I speak with many people with chronic pain and they feel that its caused their mental health issues, they believe thats there way to try, and cope. Many of them were misdiagnosed due to there physicians believing it was depression, when in-fact that had real medical problems such as Lupus, and Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. Mental health issues aid the underlying disorder rather then create it.

Bottom line people needed to be treated as a whole, and we shouldn't be quick to blame everything on mental health.

Learn more about this author, Rachael Taylor.
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