--with chronic illnesses, especially those that produce pain, do have bouts with depression, which, to me, makes perfect sense: if one is told that one's suffering is from unknown cause for which there is no good treatment--just "bearing it"--or, maybe even worse, if one is told one's suffering is "all in one's head", one is bound to get depressed. Bad life circumstances cause depression, although often this lessens with time and adjustment. As Dr. Smith has pointed out, these circumstances mirror those of mourning for the loss of a loved one; in this case one is mourning the loss of one's former life.

There is the unfortunate tendency among some doctors, of course, to think that the depression is the CAUSE, rather then the RESULT, of this suffering. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has had to (in my case, rather heatedly) tell certain ignorant health professionals that OF COURSE I was depressed--who wouldn't be with intractable pain that no one seemed able to help with? I'm fortunate that in the most acute part of my neuropathic attack Neurontin worked enough for me that my pain receded to tolerable levels at which I could function, and that with time my condition has considerably ameliorated. But I hear tales all the time of people whose condition was blamed on their depression and not the other way around.