Chronic Pain That Has No Obvious Source
Persistent back pain, headaches that cycle every few days, joint aches that don't track with any injury, these are among the most common physical presentations of depression, and among the most frequently dismissed. A 2017 review published in the Journal of Affective Disorders found that nearly 69% of patients with major depressive disorder presented to their doctors with physical pain as the primary complaint, not mood symptoms. The mechanism is well established: depression alters the way the central nervous system processes pain signals, lowering the threshold at which the body registers discomfort. The pain is real. The absence of a structural cause does not make it psychosomatic in the dismissive sense. It means the source is neurological rather than orthopedic.
