Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T02:35:52.988Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

9 - Chronic Pain and Its Treatment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 October 2021

Stephen M. Stahl
Affiliation:
University of California, San Diego
Get access

Summary

This chapter will provide a brief overview of chronic pain conditions associated with different psychiatric disorders and treated with psychotropic drugs. Included here are discussions of the symptomatic and pathophysiological overlap between disorders with pain and many other disorders treated in psychopharmacology, especially depression and anxiety. Clinical descriptions and formal criteria for how to diagnose painful conditions are only mentioned here in passing. The reader should consult standard reference sources for this material. The discussion here will emphasize how discoveries about the functioning of various brain circuits and neurotransmitters – especially those acting upon the central processing of pain – have impacted our understanding of the pathophysiology and treatment of many painful conditions that may occur with or without various psychiatric disorders. The goal of this chapter is to acquaint the reader with ideas about the clinical and biological aspects of the symptom of pain, how it can hypothetically be caused by alterations of pain processing within the central nervous system, how it can be associated with many of the symptoms of depression and anxiety, and finally, how it can be treated with several of the same agents that can treat depression and anxiety. The discussion in this chapter is at the conceptual level, and not at the pragmatic level. The reader should consult standard drug handbooks (such as Stahl’s Essential Psychopharmacology: the Prescriber’s Guide) for details of doses, side effects, drug interactions, and other issues relevant to the prescribing of these drugs in clinical practice.

Type
Chapter
Information
Stahl's Essential Psychopharmacology
Neuroscientific Basis and Practical Applications
, pp. 379 - 400
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×