If you live with chronic pain, you have probably noticed that a bad night makes the next day harder. What you may not have been told is that this works in every direction. Pain disrupts sleep. Poor sleep lowers your tolerance for pain. Both of them wear down your mood. And low mood makes sleep and pain harder to manage again. September is Pain Awareness Month, which makes it a good time to talk about the part of pain care that often gets skipped. Sleep and mood are not side i

A calm, plain-language guide to what happens at a first psychiatric appointment in Tempe, AZ, what to bring, and how to prepare.

If you live with chronic pain, someone has probably asked you a version of this question: "Do you think you might be depressed?" Depending on who asked and how, it may have felt like they were suggesting your pain is not real, or that it is somehow your fault. So let's be clear from the start: chronic pain is real, depression is real, and having one does not make the other imaginary. The honest answer to the question is yes, chronic pain can lead to depression, and it does so