Bipolar pain

[debbie160]

Why do I have severe pain on my depressive days and hardly any at all on my days of hypomania (days that I feel almost normal) ?
Could it be due to being on antidepressants? Does this pain feel and act like fibromyalgia or could I have fibromyalgia as well?

Thanks for your help

Debbie

[Penny78]

One way of helping depression and making the pain go away is working out, or walking...on the days you don't feel like doing anything, or want to stay in bed..you need to get up and put on your sneakers and go for a walk for about an hour..and see if that helps with the pain.  Getting physical activity is the best way for kicking depression..and makes you feel more energetic..gets you out of that funky mood.

Trust me..its not easy..but once you try it..you will know what I am talking about

[candace_1008]

i get fybermyliga too i think its common...it can b managed w/ insads though

[LeftCoastChick]

I have to agree, and it took me a little while to analyze my own pain. I get set off if my arthritis gets bad, and I have gone into rages and depression. Yesterday my lower back in the early afternoon hurt so badly I ended up zonking out for 5 hours because I dropped, then when I woke up I was really cranky and if someone had been around that triggered me I would have gone into a rage. I'm on a waiting list for the Pain Clinic in my local area, which is still a year away. It's really hard to control pain reactions when you aren't treated enough.

I couldn't have put it more succinctly then Advocate.

[ILADVOCATE]

What's important is that pain can set off depression and that depression can worsen a pre-existing neurological disability. I know that with the severe tardive dyskinesia I have and what they are identifying as tardive psychosis, within episodes of tardive akathesia it creates an automonic condition where anything can set me off into a rage and if I supress (not "control" as it is physical) the motor agitation I go into a dissociative state. This is better after the Zofran and rhodiola but can emerge after a lot of sitting time so I have to immediately walk it off. To take a more commonly known neurological disability my friend with Tourrette's syndrome said that when he suprressed the verbal tics
that the physical tics worsened. I know that to be true for myself with the tardive dyskinesia and tardive tourreticism. If I surpress the motor agitation, the dystonic spasms radiate throughout my body as well as the dissociation emerging but the reason they are theorizing tardive psychosis is that they have identified me as recovered from psychosis and as well I don't "believe" it and it seems like a distinct neurological phenomena that I can describe as I am doing here.
  But last winter 2007 just before recovery when I went off a mood stabilizer (my last time I would stop treatment without asking and something never to do) I became wildly manic which is to be expected but then I entered a euphoric depression that occured the emergence of the severe tardive dyskinesia and had full dissociation and at that time I wasn't rational but with the glycine titrated and a working mood stabilizer they are hypothesizing "tardive psychotic depression" and there is a factual case study online about this and I might be another.
  But regardless what I can say for known disabilities is that moodswings are likely to excaserbate physical disabilities and vice versa so with a working mood stabilizer other things are generally better. My great aunt with severe arthritis naturally had a reason to be depressed but from what people say and photos show she had episodes of depression before then and perhaps mania so that naturally not only worsened the pain but also how she was able to cope with it. Its only with my mental recovery that I can face such a severe physical disability factually and a sense of humor and I know that before recovery when I first developed tardive dyskinesia and it emerged (as it had been masked) when I was on Clozaril (which doesn't cause it) I had suicidal ideations so definitely mental recovery is essential for coping with any physical disability as it is in general. Now I just see having a physical disability having recovered from a psychiatric one as "graduating" lol and don't focus on the impact on my life and then I get on with life in that manner.

[LeftCoastChick]

When I drop into a deep depression I get Fibromyalgic symptoms, and it's quite painful. Now that I am pretty level, I only deal with the actual Arthritis pain that I do have, and my temper has improved immensely!

[ILADVOCATE]

Actually that is an interesting question and one that psychiatry is just beginning to study. I spoke to my psychopharmocologist about it and he said that studies in Europe were confirming that the physical pain people experienced during depressive episodes were real. I don't know if the studies have been confirmed in the United States or not or are clinically accepted yet. The website "Depression Central" is a good overall resource and it might have some worthwhile links. If I come across any specific sites that aren't in scientific jargon I'll see if I can post where to find them but again this is new information.
   However, as during manic episodes a person is not just having racing thoughts but be physically speeded up ("psychomoter agitation" can be part of mania) and people lose weight and can't sleep it would stand to reason that psychiatric changes would occur during depresssion.
    Fibromyalgia is something very specific and not usually associated with personality changes but multiple sclerosis does cause psychiatric changes including mood changes. Both are neurological of course and not psychiatric and totally different from depression. However, since many people with extreme depression complain of "aches and pains" and that is common to depressive episodes they are just beginning to understand that there may be something physically going on but as with the other studies I've pointed out something is never accepted as a medical fact until its confirmed but it still exists as a potential.