Pain Relief in Depressive Disorders

Abstract

The analgesic effects of SSNRIs and SSRIs in patients with primary depressive disorders can be interpreted as largely equivalent. Because of a lack of placebo-controlled TCA studies, the results for TCAs would be comparable only to those of SSRIs and SSNRIs, if non-placebo-controlled TCA studies were included. The positive correlation found indicates a close relationship of pain relief and antidepressant treatment effects. These results refer merely to patients with primary depressive disorders, not to patients with primary pain disorders. Further studies comparing the effects of different types of antidepressant drugs on pain in depressive patients are warranted.

The need to improve detection and treatment of physical pain of homeless people with schizophrenia and bipolar disorders. Results from the French Housing First Study

“…On the contrary, subjects who were administered antidepressants reported more frequently physical pain than those who were not, independently of depressive symptoms. This result is inconsistent with the results of a previous meta-analysis suggesting that antidepressant were effective in alleviating pain independently of the class of antidepressant (Gebhardt et al, 2016).…”

“…Stubbs et al, 2015). Antidepressants and anxiolytics are both frequently prescribed in schizophrenia and bipolar disorders (Fond et al, 2017a) and have been associated with respectively pain relief (Gebhardt et al, 2016) and pain improvement in chronic medical conditions (Abdel Shaheed et al, 2017). In summary, while physical pain may deeply impact quality of life, adherence into treatment, depression, functioning and recovery, little is known about self-reported pain prevalence and management in SZ and BD housed people, and even less is known about that in the HSB.…”

Blockade of the Sigma-1 Receptor Relieves Cognitive and Emotional Impairments Associated to Chronic Osteoarthritis Pain

“…Common neuroplastic changes associated with chronic pain and emotional disorders were proposed as important routes for the onset and reciprocal aggravation of both pathologies (Sheng et al, 2017). Consequently, analgesic drugs such as opioids (Mague et al, 2003; Tenore, 2008) or benzodiazepines (Vollenweider et al, 2011) have been proposed as a treatment for chronic pain-induced depression, and antidepressants like selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) (Tasmuth et al, 2002; Gebhardt et al, 2016) or tricyclic antidepressants (Rowbotham et al, 2005; Kopsky and Keppel Hesselink, 2012) exhibited antinociceptive effects under chronic pain conditions. The interest of σ1R ligands for the treatment of depressive states raised from the observation that several antidepressants had moderate to high affinity for σ1R sites (Schmidt et al, 1989; Itzhak et al, 1991; Narita et al, 1996).…”

The Link between Depression and Chronic Pain: Neural Mechanisms in the Brain

“…Antidepressant pharmacological mechanisms of SSRIs and SNRIs are to selectively act on some 5-HT and/or NE receptor subtypes and block their reuptake to increase 5-HT and/or NE that are available for biological uses in the synaptic cleft of nerve cells, thus further enhancing monoamine neurotransmission and having an antidepressant effect. The 5-HT and NE reuptake inhibitor antidepressants have been confirmed by numerous studies to be efficacious in chronic neuropathic pain patients [96–98]. Furthermore, average pain relief (recorded via a diary) and maximum pain intensity (retrospective assessment via a computer program) in patients with chronic neuropathic pain were found to be significantly lower with antidepressant venlafaxine, a 5-HT and SNRI, compared with a placebo in Tasmuth et al's randomized, double-blind study [99].…”