Is Your Headache Connected to Depression?

It starts as a dull throbbing pain on one side of your head, mildly irritating at first and hardly disrupting. Despite the discomfort, the dream that has been playing inside your head continues with hardly any interruption. But as the images and events in your mind progresses, so does the pain. What started out as a dull throbbing has turned into catastrophic pounding. It is too intense to be dismissed. It has reached the point that it has started to intrude into your subconscious, making you dream of the pain you are suffering from in actuality.
As your dreams approach their climax, the pain escalates further. Upon reaching its apex, it suddenly jolts you awake. Cupping your head in your hands, you writhe helplessly in bed. These past few days have been different for you lately. Your headache which used to strike during the day has stealthily made its entrance into your sleep, oftentimes forcing you awake. Furthermore, the pain has become twice stronger that at times it refuses to budge although you have already downed a strong pain reliever.

Are you depressed?
Normally, you are able to address mild tension headaches with the usual over-the-counter pain killers. Right after taking a pill or two with a glass of water, all you need to do is rest and wait for the medicines to take effect. Later on, you would be back on your feet again, raring to get on with your life. But if your headache has started to disrupt your life, occurring for days at a time and striking even in your sleep that you are forcefully awakened by the debilitating pain, then your headache can already be a therapeutic dilemma triggered by an underlying depression.
Most cases of depressed patients suffering from headaches have the aforementioned symptoms, with the pain persisting despite medications or lasting throughout the day after the sufferer awakens in pain. This particular type of headache has been classified and identified way back in 1964 as the major symptom of people with depressive tendencies. As in most cases, the presence of depression is barely noticeable that patients remain undiagnosed. It is only through persistent observation whereby the concerned individual exhibits other symptoms associated with depression that medical experts finally take heed of their condition. However, a portion of sufferers fail to manifest some if not most of the typical symptoms that experts delve deeper and conduct serious studies on the state of the patient's relationships in order to diagnose their condition formally.

The Hidden Face of Depression
If you have depression, you are bound to show symptoms encompassing the following areas: emotional, physical, and psychic. On the physical aspect, you are liable to experience persisting pain in other parts of your body and/or tension headaches. In line with these, you would also be plagued by sleep interruptions or disorders such as insomnia or being constantly awakened in the midst of your slumber. With these comes a marked change in your appetite, which could result to either anorexia or rapid weight gain. Emotionally, you feel as if you are drifting each day under a perennial cloud of sadness whereby you find your thoughts flitting over events that transpired in your life. At times, your thoughts would linger on the present or even in the future. Lastly, on the psychic aspect, thoughts of “death, suicide, or dying” might intrude into your consciousness every once so often.