Thunder Pain and Wellness Blog

One of the most common, and most unsettling, experiences for chronic pain patients is this: you've started treatment, you're making progress, and then something unexpected happens. A new spot starts hurting. An area you hadn't thought about in months suddenly flares up.

Chronic pain and depression often influence each other in ways that can be difficult to ignore. Ongoing pain can limit sleep, reduce activity, and make daily life feel more frustrating. Over time, that physical strain may affect mood. At the same time, depression can lower energy, increase stress, and make pain feel more intense. When both are present, it can feel like a cycle that is hard to break.

If you’ve ever watched an older dog on a walk, you’ve seen something quietly profound. They may be slower than they used to be, and they might need to rest, but they still want go. Every day.

Fibromyalgia can affect nearly every part of daily life. Widespread pain, persistent fatigue, poor sleep, and mental fog often make even simple tasks feel harder than they should. Because fibromyalgia is believed to involve the nervous system amplifying pain signals, treatment often needs to go beyond basic pain relief.

If you've ever felt like you're managing everyone else's life while barely holding your own together, you're not imagining it. And according to Dr. Thunder, a chronic pain and depression specialist at Thunder Pain and Wellness in Reno, NV, that invisible weight may be doing more damage than most people realize.

At Thunder Pain and Wellness, we talk a lot about cutting-edge treatments like SPRAVATO, IV ketamine, and TMS. But sometimes the most powerful lessons come from the simplest places — like watching our 14-year-old dog Jasper hobble out the front door for his morning walk.

Living with pain that affects your entire body can be confusing, exhausting, and deeply discouraging - especially when there’s no clear injury or diagnosis. You may feel sore all over, struggle to get through the day, or wonder why even rest doesn’t seem to help. Many people experiencing widespread chronic pain search for answers long before they ever hear the word fibromyalgia. Understanding the symptoms is often the first step toward finally making sense of what your body has been trying to tell you.

Many people living with chronic pain, depression, or invisible illness learn how to “hold it together” for short periods of time. To the outside world, they may look fine — but internally, they’re struggling just to get through the day.

If you’ve been exploring treatment options for depression that hasn’t responded to traditional therapies, you may have heard about Spravato®. Beginning a new treatment can bring up a lot of questions, and knowing what to expect can help ease anxiety. At Thunder Pain and Wellness, Spravato treatment sessions are designed to be calm, structured, and supported by a dedicated care team every step of the way.

Why doesn’t chronic pain improve with simple pain relievers? In this video, Dr. Thunder explains how chronic pain differs from acute pain and why emotional, cognitive, and lifestyle factors play a major role. Chronic pain involves multiple brain regions — including those related to stress, anxiety, and future concerns — making whole-person, integrative care essential.