When you think of chronic pain, people often think that physical injuries or medical conditions are the primary culprits. However, there is actually a significant connection between trauma and chronic pain, 
such as migraines, headaches, IBS, back pain, and other persistent physiological issues. There is an intricate relationship between your mind and body, and how past traumatic experiences can be unconsciously carried through life when not healed, manifesting as ongoing physical discomfort.
Traumatic events can have a way of rewiring how your brain and nervous system responds to pain, leading to increased pain sensitivity. This can explain why people are able to experience chronic pain without apparent physical causes. Understanding this shows why treating both the physical symptoms as well as underlying trauma and emotional elements of chronic pain is so important. Healthcare professionals should encourage, especially in cases where the cause of pain is inorganic or not clear, that psychotherapy is included in the treatment plan for people struggling with chronic pain.
The Link Between Trauma and Chronic Pain
The complex relationship between mind and body plays a significant role in how trauma can lead to chronic pain. Traumatic experiences, especially when severe or prolonged, can alter the way the brain processes pain, which can result in responding with persistent pain even without ongoing physical injury actually happening. This is especially notable when present experiences emotionally trigger old trauma, causing pain to increase in the body, triggering migraines, and more.
Trauma can also cause the nervous system to become hypersensitive. This heightened state can cause the brain to perceive normal sensory signals with pain responses, contributing to chronic pain without an apparent physical cause. Additionally, chronic stress and trauma can induce an inflammatory response within the nervous system that can further alter pain signal processing, which can increase both the duration of pain, and amplify the experience of pain, as well.
When you experience trauma, your body enters a heightened state of alert, which involves the release of stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol
. Although this is an effective short-term stress response to help with fight or flight, ongoing stress from unresolved trauma can result in several health issues as well as inflammation, muscle tension, and more.
Migraines and Stigma
As a therapist who specializes in trauma and working with people with chronic migraines, one of the more complex issues I’ve encountered is actually the worry some people have that linking migraines to mental health will validate the idea that the migraines are “all in their head”. For many migraine sufferers, they have gone through life tortured by migraines, but since it’s not visible in the same way other physical illnesses are, they have been told by people around them that they’re causing the migraines or that it’s all in their head. Therefore, many feel they need to be able to point to a medical-only cause of their migraines in order to prove the legitimacy of their suffering (one could also say it’s a trauma for many migraine-sufferers being blamed for their suffering throughout their lives and not understood or really heard).
Unfortunately, this stigma has caused many people to not seek treatments that could ease their suffering, such as therapy focused on migraines and headaches, and what may be emotionally reinforcing or playing into the chronic pain in this area. Obviously, there are certain times where migraines are caused by something more purely medical. But I have seen the difference it makes for people when they are able to allow themselves to explore beyond the medical and look at the emotional side of migraines and other forms of chronic pain. This doesn’t mean that your pain is any less real or that it’s all in your head. The pain and experience of the struggle is still valid and real. This goes for any chronic pain that has been unseen or invalidated over time.
Childhood and Emotional Trauma
Adverse childhood experiences can significantly increase the risk of developing chronic pain in adulthood. These traumatic events may include physical or emotional abuse, neglect, or bullying. Family dysfunction or witnessing discord between parents on a regular basis can also play a role, as well as other experiences not included here. People with multiple adverse childhood experiences are generally more likely to experience trauma responses later in life. (While this post is more about chronic pain, trauma responses can include a number of different mental health struggles such as anxiety, depression, phobias, and more).
Getting Help and Reducing Your Struggle
Understanding the connection between physiological, psychological, and emotional is important for developing effective treatment strategies that addresses both the emotional and physiological aspects of chronic pain. As mentioned above, it’s important that healthcare professionals encourage people struggling with any form of unexplained chronic pain to round out their treatment with therapy. I’ve seen people who’ve felt helpless with medical treatments make significant strides forward in the reduction of frequency and intensity of chronic migraines and other forms of chronic pain. It is possible to break free from the cycle of trauma and chronic pain, and to reduce your suffering.
