Headaches are one of the more common physical symptoms of depression. While not everyone living with a diagnosis of depression will experience this symptom, those who do may find it debilitating – with headaches often interfering with the ability to go about their daily lives.

While people experiencing headaches from depression often seek out specific headache or migraine remedies, sometimes the best solution is to seek depression treatment directly. Chronic headaches can exacerbate depressive symptoms, and conversely, untreated depression can lead to the onset of chronic headaches. Finding evidence-based depression treatment can make dramatic changes in your mental health and a vast reduction in physical symptoms.

Understanding Major Depressive Disorder

Depression is a complex mental health condition with many different diagnoses, causes, and symptoms. Scientists have discovered a strong genetic link for depressive disorders, suggesting that it is primarily an inherited mental health condition. However, any individual is liable to develop depression as a result of several lived experiences.

Among other causes, some of the leading contributing factors to depression include:

  • Major life changes
  • Living through traumatic experiences
  • Chronic stress
  • Serious medical diagnoses
  • Family history of depression

Regardless of the cause, living with major depression can be difficult. Depression symptoms can interfere with your ability to work, maintain healthy relationships, or even pursue the things that you find most meaningful in your life.

Symptoms of Depression

The symptoms of depression often stand in the way of people living life as they see fit. Depressive symptoms can manifest as physical symptoms, including headaches. While symptoms can vary between distinct depression diagnoses or even between individuals, most people will experience several of the symptoms listed below.

Mental Health Symptoms

The mental health symptoms of depression are those that affect your thoughts, emotions, or motivations. Among others, some of the more common mental health symptoms of depression include:

  • Trouble concentrating or focusing on specific tasks
  • Chronic low mood
  • Loss of motivation
  • Thoughts of death
  • Anger or irritability
  • Unstable moods
  • Slowed thinking
  • Feelings of guilt or worthlessness
  • Anxiety or restlessness

Anxiety disorders often co-occur with depression and can exacerbate headache symptoms.

For people with depression, these symptoms can occur most of the day and most of the week. Depending on the specific depression diagnosis, these symptoms can be episodic or can last for years without a clear end in sight.

But there are ways to start feeling better. Evidence-based depression treatments can drastically change the mental landscape for people living with depression, resulting in a dramatic reduction in mental health symptoms and improved well-being.

Physical Symptoms

Most people typically think of depression as primarily a psychological problem, but several physical symptoms of depression can be incredibly distressing as well. Some of the common physical symptoms of depression include:

  • Frequent headaches
  • Sleep difficulties, including either insomnia or hypersomnia
  • Unexpected weight changes
  • Chronic fatigue and tiredness
  • Muscle pain or tension
  • Appetite changes

These symptoms can often seem counterintuitive to people experiencing depression. How, exactly, does a mental health disorder lead to physical pain, tension, or appetite changes? The simple explanation is that depression happens primarily in the brain (and in the gut). The same networks that regulate your mood also control physical signals from the body.

Headaches From Depression

Individuals with depression commonly report headaches as a physical depression symptom. People are much more likely to experience migraine headaches – a severe form of headache – if they have a diagnosis of a depressive disorder.

In one study, scientists found that people with major depressive disorder were 3.4 times more likely to develop migraines over two years than the general community. Conversely, people with migraines were 5.8 times as likely to develop depression.

The reasons for this high rate of comorbidity aren’t fully understood, but scientists believe that several factors contribute to why depression headaches are so common.

Common Neurotransmitters

While depression is more complex than just a neurotransmitter imbalance, serotonin is often implicated in both depression and migraine diagnoses.

Specifically, people with both depression and migraine disorders typically have a lower quantity of serotonin receptors, suggesting that these receptors may be involved in both depression and headaches.

Genetic Predisposition

Research looking into genetic links between depression and migraines has found that specific genes are associated with both disorders. Essentially, certain gene sequences can increase your risk of both depression and migraines, and family members can pass migraines down to later generations.

Stress

Experiencing chronic stress can be a trigger for both depression and migraines. While stress may lead to migraines at first, regularly experiencing migraines can also contribute to depression.

Chronic Pain

Headaches, especially severe headaches and migraines, can rapidly become a source of chronic pain. When people experience chronic pain, they quickly become more susceptible to developing a diagnosis of depression; this is much of the reason people with migraines are so prone to developing a depressive disorder.

Symptoms and Diagnosis

The symptoms of headaches associated with mental disorders can vary widely, depending on the type of headache and the underlying mental health condition. Common symptoms include:

  • Headache pain, which can range from mild to severe
  • Sensitivity to light and sound
  • Nausea and vomiting
  • Dizziness and vertigo
  • Fatigue and lethargy
  • Difficulty concentrating and memory problems

Diagnosing headaches linked to mental disorders requires a comprehensive evaluation by a healthcare professional. This evaluation typically includes a physical examination, a detailed medical history, and a psychological assessment. Healthcare professionals may use standardized questionnaires and rating scales to assess symptoms’ severity and accurately diagnose the underlying mental health condition.

If you’re experiencing these symptoms, it’s essential to seek professional help. Proper diagnosis is the first step toward effective treatment, significantly improving your quality of life.

What You Can Do About Headaches From Depression

Depression headaches can be inconvenient and painful, even without considering all the other challenging aspects of living with a depression diagnosis. A depression headache may require you to call out of work, miss out on spending time with friends or family, or even fall behind on your responsibilities at home.

Primary headaches like migraines and tension headaches require specific treatment approaches. The good news is that you can find relief from depression headaches. In fact, there are many options for treating depression, headaches, or both simultaneously, offering you several pathways to achieving a lasting and worthwhile recovery.

The best method for moving toward a greater sense of holistic well-being is finding an integrative treatment center that offers both medical and psychological treatments for depression and headaches. When both challenges are disrupting your quality of life, working to treat them both can help you get on the road to recovery faster.

Traditional Depression and Headache Treatment Options

Talk therapy and medication management are the two traditional treatment options for depression. Both styles of treatment have been studied for decades and can lead to reductions in depression headaches, improvements in mood, and regained motivation.

Talk Therapy

Many therapeutic styles have proven themselves to be effective in treating depressive disorders, including therapeutic modalities such as:

  • Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)
  • Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT)
  • Interpersonal therapy (IPT)
  • Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT)

While each modality takes a slightly different approach, these techniques can help change how you think, feel, and behave. They provide actionable coping strategies for when you experience symptoms of depression, and when they are successful, they can dramatically reduce your experience of migraine or headaches as well.

Medication Management

Medication management takes a different approach – rather than working with a therapist, you work with a psychiatrist who can provide several medication options that can treat depression and chronic headaches related to depression.

Medication management is a process that should take place over several weeks. A mental health professional will monitor your symptoms and make adjustments or try new medications if the first one isn’t a good fit. Ongoing medication management will help you dial in the correct dosage to meet your needs and get professional support if you experience any uncomfortable side effects.

While psychiatrists aren’t typically first-line providers for migraine treatment, many of the medications used to treat depression can provide substantial migraine relief.

Medication management and talk therapy typically work best together. Several studies have shown that combined treatment provides better results than one intervention alone.

Novel Depression and Migraine Headaches Treatment Techniques

Although there is a large body of evidence supporting traditional treatment options, the fact is that they don’t always work for everyone.

But at Plus by APN, our team offers exciting and innovative treatment techniques that can work even when traditional treatments fail. We can provide a new avenue of hope for people who have tried other treatments without success.

Deep Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation

Deep transcranial magnetic stimulation (deep TMS) is a way of treating depression and migraines directly at the source of the problem.

People with depression and co-occurring migraines often have specific regions of the brain that are underactive compared to neurotypical controls, and deep TMS can stimulate these regions to higher levels of activity.

A non-invasive cap fitted with electromagnets sends brief impulses to underactive brain regions. This process causes neurons to fire, increasing activity and building neural connections that can last well beyond the treatment session alone.

Deep TMS is an evidence-based approach for treating certain types of depression that can be used in conjunction with other depression and migraine treatment techniques to further enhance your chances of success.

Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) involves putting clients into a hyper-oxygenated chamber. Breathing this highly oxygenated air increases the amount of oxygen in the blood and accelerates tissue healing in the brain and the body.

HBOT is often used in the treatment of certain migraine conditions and can frequently lead to a rapid reduction in symptoms. When paired with other techniques for treating depression, it can play an important role in a holistic plan for whole-person well-being.

Ketamine-Assisted Treatment

Ketamine is a dissociative psychedelic medication that has been used in the medical field for decades. Only recently has its mental health benefits been closely investigated by scientists and clinicians, and it has rapidly proven itself to be a potent and effective tool for treating a wide variety of mental health conditions.

Ketamine-assisted treatment (KAT) requires oversight and constant supervision from a trained medical professional. 

At Plus by APN, ketamine-assisted therapy starts with an assessment that helps professionals determine whether KAT is right for you. During this process, you’ll get answers to any questions you have about treatment, and our team will help ensure there are no contraindications that may disqualify you from receiving KAT.

Next, you start the ketamine-assisted therapy session by taking the medicine. The effects take effect in about thirty minutes and last about two hours. During this time, you’ll remain at Plus by APN under the supervision of a trained medical professional.

Then, 24-48 hours after ketamine administration, you’ll talk with your therapist about your mental health challenges, how you can move past them, and the ketamine experience itself.

With just a single ketamine session, most people accomplish in one day what could take weeks or months in standard therapy. In effect, ketamine acts as a therapy incubator, helping people make breakthroughs and revelations that galvanize their resolve to follow the path to recovery.

The effects of just a single session are remarkable, but some people may benefit from repeated KAT sessions to further enhance their symptom relief.

Start Treatment at Plus by APN

At Plus by APN, our experience has shown us that offering a wide range of effective and evidence-based treatment methods is the best way to help our clients recover. That’s why we’ve paired both traditional and innovative approaches in our holistic model of mental health, giving you every tool available to meet your mental and physical health needs.

To get started with treatment, contact our team by calling 866.271.6006 or filling out our confidential online contact form for more information. Our team is ready to support you throughout your recovery journey.

References

  • Breslau, N et al. “Comorbidity of migraine and depression: investigating potential etiology and prognosis.” Neurology vol. 60,8 (2003): 1308-12. doi:10.1212/01.wnl.0000058907.41080.54
  • Jahangir, Saira, et al. “Is There an Association Between Migraine and Major Depressive Disorder? A Narrative Review.” Cureus vol. 12,6 e8551. 10 Jun. 2020, doi:10.7759/cureus.8551