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This Common Mental Disorder Has a Strange Link to Severe Chronic Pain

A study of 1,000 patients found people with the worst treatment-resistant pain were much more likely to screen positive for ADHD symptoms.

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People with severe chronic pain that has proven to be resistant to treatment may have a new bad guy to blame for their worsening condition: undiagnosed ADHD.

A large study published in Scientific Reports looked at 958 patients across 13 specialized pain centers in Japan. Every participant had been living with pain for at least three months that hadn’t responded to standard treatment. They found that 17 percent of patients screened positive for ADHD symptoms. That’s more than double the general population........

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