{"id":2167,"date":"2019-04-24T11:36:33","date_gmt":"2019-04-24T11:36:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/?p=2167"},"modified":"2020-02-18T16:28:41","modified_gmt":"2020-02-18T16:28:41","slug":"emotional-impacts-life-chronic-pain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/managing-pain\/emotional-impacts-life-chronic-pain\/","title":{"rendered":"Emotional impacts of life with chronic pain"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div style=\"background-color:#f2f2f2;color:#32373c\" class=\"wp-block-atomic-blocks-ab-profile-box square ab-font-size-14 ab-block-profile ab-profile-columns\"><div class=\"ab-profile-column ab-profile-content-wrap\"><h2 class=\"ab-profile-name\" style=\"color:#32373c\">Deirdre Ryan<\/h2><p class=\"ab-profile-title\" style=\"color:#32373c\">Chair of Chronic Pain Ireland and Pre-Accredited Psychotherapist<\/p><div class=\"ab-profile-text\"><\/div><ul class=\"ab-social-links\"><\/ul><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Life with chronic pain can worsen our mental health; and in turn, poor mental health can worsen our perception of pain.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cChronic pain can impact every facet of everyday life resulting in low self-esteem and loss of meaning. Patients often question <a href=\"https:\/\/www.chronicpain.ie\/our-services\/self-management\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"what this new life with chronic pain will look like (opens in a new tab)\">what this new life with chronic pain will look like<\/a>.&nbsp;Research shows a high comorbidity of chronic pain with depression and anxiety, but one, often overlooked issue, is grief.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Many of those we support mention what they \u2018used to\u2019 be able to do and compare life with chronic pain with life before. For example, \u201cWell, I was always the one everyone came to for help. How will I ask them?\u201d, or, \u201dI used to be able to weed the whole garden, but now I can only manage 10 minutes, then I can\u2019t do anything else for the rest of the day\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There are huge losses associated with any chronic pain or health condition. Loss of hopes and dreams of the future. Similarly loss of identity or role in the family or at work. This loss of physical capacity and dignity are just a few. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While treating the physical problem is usually the main approach, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/managing-pain\/chronic-pain-can-affect-everyone-it-doesnt-discriminate\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">life with chronic pain is complex<\/a> and usually involves a psychological component. Often, what patients hear is that it\u2019s, \u2018all in their head\u2019. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But what we think and feel impacts how we perceive pain, and life with chronic pain will impact our mental health. It\u2019s vital that anyone with chronic pain addresses their mental health and allows themselves the time to grieve and adjust to life with a chronic condition.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<div id=\"healt-1880700907\"><div class=\"healt-adlabel\">Advertisements<\/div><div id=\"healt-206780708\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px;\"><a data-no-instant=\"1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flexiseq.ie\/ie\/index.html\" rel=\"noopener\" class=\"a2t-link\" target=\"_blank\" aria-label=\"Flexiseq Digital Banners 750x250px 1.3 (1)\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com\/cdn-site.mediaplanet.com\/app\/uploads\/sites\/94\/2019\/05\/07211423\/Flexiseq-Digital-Banners-750x250px-1.3-1.jpg\" alt=\"\"  srcset=\"https:\/\/s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com\/cdn-site.mediaplanet.com\/app\/uploads\/sites\/94\/2019\/05\/07211423\/Flexiseq-Digital-Banners-750x250px-1.3-1.jpg 1563w, https:\/\/s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com\/cdn-site.mediaplanet.com\/app\/uploads\/sites\/94\/2019\/05\/07211423\/Flexiseq-Digital-Banners-750x250px-1.3-1-768x256.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1563px) 100vw, 1563px\" width=\"750\" height=\"250\"   \/><\/a><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Life with chronic pain can worsen our mental health; and in turn, poor mental health can worsen our perception of pain. \u201cChronic pain can impact every facet of everyday life resulting in low self-esteem and loss of meaning. Patients often question what this new life with chronic pain will look like.&nbsp;Research shows a high comorbidity &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/managing-pain\/emotional-impacts-life-chronic-pain\/\">Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":2168,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2663],"tags":[2701,2662],"class_list":["post-2167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-managing-pain","tag-expert-pain-panel","tag-managing-pain-2019"],"acf":[],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com\/cdn-site.mediaplanet.com\/app\/uploads\/sites\/94\/2019\/04\/07211442\/P6-Expert-Panel-Chronic-Pain-Ireland-Headshot-600x400.jpg","featured_image_src_square":"https:\/\/s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com\/cdn-site.mediaplanet.com\/app\/uploads\/sites\/94\/2019\/04\/07211442\/P6-Expert-Panel-Chronic-Pain-Ireland-Headshot-600x600.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"Your Future Career","author_link":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/author\/harveyodonnell\/"},"vicky_index_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2167"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2167\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4135,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2167\/revisions\/4135"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}