Depression can be Physically Painful too!
Pakistan Times Health Desk Report

AN Indiana University School of Medicine researchers have revealed that physical symptoms are nearly as common as emotional ones in patients suffering from depression.

Lead author of the study, Dr. Kurt Kroenke said that patients with depression frequently talk to their physicians about symptoms such as headache, back or muscle pain, stomach-ache and dizziness instead of symptoms more commonly associated with depression such as fatigue, lack of motivation and moodiness.

"Depression is a risk factor for symptoms of pain. The most reports of pain such as muscle pain, headaches, leg pain are two or three times more common in people with depression," added Kroenke.

The research was published in the journal of General Internal Medicine. He further said that physical symptoms may also serve as a barometer for physicians to gauge the effectiveness of common anti-depressant treatments.

"Physical symptoms may not respond to common antidepressant treatment as much as the emotional symptoms. Even though the physical symptoms may be related to or aggravated by the depression, they can linger longer than the emotional symptoms," Kroenke added.

The study examined the prevalence, impact on quality of life and outcome of physical symptoms in patients with depression during nine months of antidepressant therapy and the results said that in more than a third of the patients, the physical symptoms persisted longer than the depression symptoms.

"While physical symptoms showed, on average, some improvement with antidepressant treatment, the improvement was typically less than was reported for emotional symptoms. Most of the improvement for the physical symptoms occurred within the first month of treatment, while the emotional symptoms continued to improve over a nine-month period," explained Kroenke.●