Anxiety, PTSD And Chronic Pain Treatment

Chronic pain, also known as nociceptive pain, is a major medical problem. Like any long-term health problem, it can cause trouble beyond the body. Think depression, anxiety, and poor sleep. Nociceptive pain can make it hard to keep up at work, run the house, and see friends. That leads to strain with people and money trouble. Chronic pain can wear down your quality of life and lead to other serious health problems.

That check is part of the evaluation here. A nervous system under constant threat turns pain signals up: sleep breaks down, muscles guard, and the brain reads ordinary input as danger. We look for that pattern alongside the physical source of the pain and treat both in the same clinic, with procedures, medication where it helps, and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) delivered in-house by a pain-trained clinician.

Finding anxiety does not mean the pain is in your head. It means there are two things to treat instead of one. What the evidence shows for ACT in chronic pain.

Yes, and it works best treated as one problem. Pain that lasts after an accident, an assault or combat usually has a physical source and a nervous system still running in alarm mode, and each keeps the other going. We find and treat the physical source with image-guided procedures, and treat the alarm state with ACT and, where it fits, a stellate ganglion block, which quiets the sympathetic nerves behind both the pain and the hyperarousal.

Why “you’re safe now” does not switch the alarm off.

Nociceptive pain syndrome hurts your body and your mood in these ways:

• Less activity costs you stamina and flexibility
• Mood problems such as sadness, anxiety, and a short temper
• Muscle aches and sore joints
• Sleep issues

Chronic pain shows up in many forms, such as:

• Osteoarthritis: This form of arthritis happens when the cushion of cartilage between bones wears away from normal wear and strain.
• Back Pain: Back pain can come from muscle strains, pinched nerves, or arthritis in the spine.
• Inflammatory Bowel Disease: (IBD) is a disorder that keeps the gut inflamed. It causes pain and cramping in the bowels.

• Rheumatoid arthritis is an illness where the immune system attacks the joints and causes severe joint inflammation.
• Fibromyalgia is a neurological illness that causes pain and tender spots all over the body (known as trigger points).
• Surgical trauma

Chronic pain syndrome treatment is hard to understand, but the pain can be managed. Some of the ways include:

• Pain-relieving drugs
• Examples are anti-inflammatories, steroids, muscle relaxants, antidepressants that also ease pain, and, in extreme cases, opioids (this is the last resort).
• Physical therapy to improve range of motion and flexibility.
• Nerve blocks to stop pain signals and bring chronic pain relief.

Risk factors for chronic pain syndrome include:

• Those who are depressed: Experts aren’t sure why depression leads to chronic pain. One idea is that depression changes how the brain takes in and reads nerve signals.
• Those who smoke: Researchers are looking at why smoking tends to make arthritis, fibromyalgia, and other chronic pain illnesses worse.
• Age as a factor: As you get older, you’re more likely to get diseases that can cause chronic pain.

• When your pain begins
• How it feels (for example, sharp and burning or dull and aching)
• If your pain gets worse.

Anxiety disorder often means repeat bouts of sharp anxiety, panic, or terror that peak within minutes. People with an anxiety disorder often feel extreme, constant worry and panic in everyday situations.

Our anxiety disorder specialists look for certain symptoms. They range from mild to severe:

• Feeling uneasy, restless, or on edge.
• Having a fast heart rate
• Ongoing gastrointestinal (GI) problems
• Feeling driven to avoid things that upset you.

Many conditions are tied to anxiety attacks:

• Agoraphobia: You fear and avoid places or situations that can make you anxious.
• Panic Disorder: It means repeat bouts of severe anxiety, dread, or terror that peak within minutes (panic attacks).
• Social Anxiety Disorder: Social anxiety disorder (social phobia) comes from feeling small, self-conscious, and worried about being judged. It causes high anxiety, dread, and avoiding time with other people.

As soon as you notice the symptoms, see an anxiety disorder specialist quickly. The signs can be:

• You fear you worry too much, and it hurts your job, your relationships, or other parts of your life.
• You find it hard to control your worry or anxiety.
• You’re depressed, have trouble with alcohol or drugs, or have other mental health problems besides anxiety.

Padda Institute has the most qualified and experienced specialists in St. Louis. Staff from several fields work together to build treatment that fits each patient. Talk therapy (psychotherapy) and medicine are the two most common therapies for acute anxiety, generalized anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy builds meditation into talk therapy. It works to keep depression from coming back. For a short time, we back the sensible use of medicine to ease anxiety and help the meditation along. This matters most for patients with chronic pain, which can be seen as a physical problem underneath.

Which drug we use depends on your type of anxiety. It also depends on whether you have other mental or physical health problems. Some antidepressants also treat anxiety disorders. Buspirone, an anti-anxiety drug, may be prescribed.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is the cornerstone of our approach. It moves people toward mental and physical health. ACT is a mindful talk therapy. It teaches you to stay in the present moment. You accept thoughts and feelings without judging them, and you commit to useful action.

We use ACT for a range of problems, including anxiety, depression, chronic pain, and substance abuse. We lead people through mindfulness exercises. We help them treat hard experiences with kindness instead of a fight. Our job is to move you toward acceptance, toughness, and commitment, so your energy goes into healing and growth.

Padda Institute has one of the most experienced doctors in St. Louis. We make sure each patient gets quality care and a real recovery, most of all in chronic pain relief and long term pain management. You can read what our patients say.

We do not split chronic pain, anxiety and post-traumatic stress into different clinics. They share one control system. A nervous system that has lived through trauma or long pain gets stuck in fight-or-flight. Doctors call that sustained sympathetic activation. It does not stay limited to how alert or anxious you feel. It changes vagal tone (how strongly the vagus nerve calms the body).

The vagus nerve is the main line between the nervous system and the gut. When fight-or-flight stays high and vagal signals drop, the gut changes. How it moves, how well its lining seals, and its mix of bacteria (the microbiome) all shift. Those shifts then raise or lower inflammation across the body. They also feed central sensitization, which keeps pain turned up and the sense of threat high. It is a loop, and it runs both ways.

This is why a procedure such as stellate ganglion block can matter long after its numbing drug wears off. It is also why we pair it with counseling and metabolic and lifestyle work instead of treating any one of them as the whole answer.

We offer the autonomic–microbiome mechanism as our clinical reasoning, not as settled evidence. The link between sympathetic tone, vagal signals and inflammation is well described. The exact role of microbiome change in keeping chronic pain going is still being studied. We are clear about which is which.