Chronic Idiopathic Pain, Mianserin and ‘Masked’ Depression

Abstract

In this study an attempt was made to provide controlled empirical evidence for the hypothesis that chronic idiopathic pain might be a specific form of ‘masked depression’. For this purpose, chronic pain patients supposed to be suffering from a ‘masked depression’ were compared to patients with organic pain and coexistent depression, patients with only organic pain, and patients with only depression, in a double-blind placebo-controlled therapeutic trial with mianserin. Although mianserin appeared to have effective antidepressant properties in this study, no pain improvement was found in any of the three chronic pain groups. These results challenge the validity and clinical relevance of the ‘masked depression’ concept for chronic idiopathic pain.

Comorbid Psychiatric Disorders and Predictors of Pain Management Program Success in Patients With Chronic Pain

“…Most of these investigations have found a relationship between chronic pain and depressive spectrum symptoms. [3][4][5] Furthermore, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSM-IV), 6 demonstrates an h t 2 0 0 2 P h y s i c i a n s P o s t g r a d u a t e P r e s s , I n c . O n e p e r s o n a l c o p y m a y b e p r i n t e d increased awareness of pain and its comorbidity patterns.…”

Depression levels in chronic orofacial pain patients: a pilot study

“…There is a good deal of controversy in the literature as to how far mood change, including depression, is caused by pain or whether a depressive state of mind can amplify the perception of pain (33). Pain and psychological illness could be viewed as having reciprocal psychological and behavioural effects involving both process of illness expression and adaptation, as well as pain having specific effects on emotional state and behavioural function (5).…”

Psychotropic Drugs for the Management of Chronic Pain and Itch

“…We suppose that this could be explained by sex difference; our trial demonstrated high efficacy of mianserin in men and a low effect in women. The other studies did not distinguish the effect of mianserin in males and females, but there were more women than men in the studied groups in all of them [193,194,195,196]. With regard to side effects, there were withdrawals and dropouts due to the following side effects: lack of appetite, dryness of mouth, thirst, drowsiness, and dullness [194,195,196].…”

“…In the paper [194], the authors decided to confirm/refute the theory about chronic idiopathic pain as a form of “masked depression”. In the experiment, the patients were divided into four groups: (1) patients with pain and “masked depression” diagnosed, (2) patients suffering from pain and depression, (3) patients suffering only from pain, (4) patients with only depression.…”