Stress - How does it affect your MS?

[Marina]

Comments allowed.

[Heste]

Before I was diagnosed with MS I was diagnosed with Stress. It was not until my leg and eye stopped working that they had to come up with a better answer. The other symptoms could be put down to stress.

So I can not really answer your poll properly as for me stress and MS are have been blended in together.

If my stress symptoms were really MS then did I really have stress symptoms? Perhaps I actually cope with stress really well but have MS. Perhaps MS is really just super-stress?

 

I have been in extremely stressful situations. They gave me counseling sessions in which they identified 8 major causes of stress all happening at once. (For the nosier reader - my mother died just after her divorce, my horse died from colic, my horse's insurers didn

[scubachick]

I am unsure whether stress was the trigger for my current attack.

 

Previous ones have been "virus" induced usually after a bad cold or the flu.

 

This one the cold came after the attack and I am currently under a lot of stress.

 

So I not sure if stress was one of the factors this time.

[mayb]

I am very aware that stress is my worst enemy - every time I have had a bad session it has been during a stressful time. I don't mean the daily ups and downs but when life is putting the pressure on and you can't just do something about it.

 

This time it was caused by a call back to the hospital after a routine mamogram showed a possible problem. I knew I shouldn't get worked up about it - these things happen to lots of people - most times it turns out to be nothing. The wait for the return appointment and the subsequent tests were very stressful and although I got the all clear, within days I lost the use of one leg and was in an awful lot of pain. Things are slowly improving but this is one of the worst set backs I have had for years and there was no way of seeing it coming.

 

Funny thing though Scubachick - I very rarely catch the colds etc that go around, I sometimes feel I am about to get the bug but it never develops. At those times I nearly always suffer some sort of ms symptoms instead. I can't remember the last time I had a cold and everyone in the office envies me my health!! Its a strange world. (I am touching wood as I speak). I suppose fighting off the germs is another type of stress - bodywise anyway.

[Hils]

During the busy summer at work we have a student in our office to 'help out'. The student we had last year caused so many problems for us that in the end I had my doctor sign me off with 'work related stress'. I had head pains that I'd never had before, not just what I would descibe as normal headaches, but real pains that I am sure were ms related and I felt generally unwell.

 

The pains went after a couple of weeks off work and, fortunately, the student had been removed from the office by the time I returned to work.

 

Hils

[Lauri04]

I think mostly it makes my symptoms worse but this last time I think it definitely brought on a relapse.

[RedSonja]

I can handle a bit of stress, but falling off the motorbike gave me my second relapse. Since then I take my medication like a good girl and have avoided kissing the asphalt. I have had no more knockout, dead-to-the-world, stay in bed relapses since then.

Since MS came to stay I have tried avoiding stress as best I can, makes life much simpler.

[smiffy]

The way stressful situations affect me was one of the first symptoms of my MS. It made me feel as if I had been stuffed full of cotton wool. There must have been a lot of it 'cos it made it difficult for me to walk, talk and write/type. People at work thought I was a bit odd when this happened but that's the way it goes eh.

 

Happy Midwinter to you all. I lit my candle on the evening of the 21st to light my way through the longest night. Postponed my feast day until 25th due to family work commitments, otherwise we would have been together on the evening of 21st.

 

[marcia]

It is only extreme stress which affects me, it causes symptoms I have not had before but they eventually disappear, I have ppms

[mayb]

Two days after I was suspended from work the worst session I had ever had kicked in - it took that long for the shock to wear off I think. Funnily enough though, and I have everything spare touching wood at the moment, I have not had one cold or upset stomach or all of the other ailments that have been around me since then. I have just read an interesting article on the connection between stress and lower back pain. It is all down to the stress reducing your ability to protect yourself from anything else happening to your body. I think my body bypases every other ailment and goes for this every time!!

[angela]

Hi Mary

Have you got a link to that article about stress and its connection with lower back pain? just over a month ago we had to forcibly, for reasons I won't go into,throw our 19 year old son out (third time), I thought I was coping pretty well but the last couple of weeks I've had lower back pain and now reading your post I wonder if it's connected!

 

Angela

[Marina]

Oh Angela, I'm terribly sorry to hear that...

 

Re back pain and stress - also, any stress will cause muscles to go into a certain amount of spasm through tension. In a way, it's similar to a tension headache.

 

Having said that, if anybody's going to discuss a topic of back pain and stress, please start a new thread in the MS Discussion area, as this is topic is purely related to the poll. Thanks!

[angela]

Thank you Marina, it was hard but had to happen!

 

Angela

[liddy]

Im abit of an authority on stress at the moment still having to share a home with my ex husband who refuses to leave (and a very upset 13yr old!).

When things get really bad (constant visits to solicitor/threatening letters etc) I can feel my smptoms getting worse. Usually starting with the feelings of desperation, then the headaches and eye pain, lack of sleep, stomach upsets, strange metallic taste in mouth... all leading to more general unwellness.

I found out that yesterday he went and had the house valued behind my back as he is taking me to court to make me sell it.

I now have to trawl through estate agents to provide lists of suitable properties for myself and my daughter that we probably cant afford PLUS I have to see a mortgage advisor and show what sort of mortgage I could take on.

My solicitor feels once the judge looks at the case (including a letter from my GP regarding MS dx and the stress I have been under for over a year) he will very likely decide to let me and my child stay in the house and that the ex will have to rent somewhere until I am ready to sell.

Incidentally the house was valued at

[fiddlestix]

It depends on the severity & the duration of the stress as to whether it causes a full-blown relapse or 'just' makes most symptoms worse.

'Scuse me for being picky here, but by 'stress', d'you mean simply the emotional kind Marina, or were you including stuff like bugs - which the body sees as forms of stress.

 

My daughter has just decided on the theme of her dissertation for her BSc in Herbal Medicine: it's 'The role of stress as a precipitating factor in the onset of MS' ..... perhaps I should give her the link to this site?

[gordon]

yeah stress affects me bad , i recently got married and i think all the stress of that made me relapse so i have an mri booking which i hate

[Marina]

by 'stress', d'you mean simply the emotional kind Marina, or were you including stuff like bugs - which the body sees as forms of stress.

Sorry, I've only just seen this. I mean the emotional kind of stress, due to circumstances and which can be accompanied by anxiety. Stuff like bugs would be in a separate category of infection, which is also known to affect MS.

[SkattyBell]

Prolonged physical stress can sometimes make things worse, due to back problems, perhaps? so I have to try to find a happy medium when it comes to physical activity. Most flare-ups have happened regardless of wether or not I've been physically or mentally stressed. Never a good idea to push yourself when feeling tired or to get overly stressed in any walk of life. Pacing oneself and knowing your limitations does help.

Funnily I never suffer too badly with cold symptoms, although when I get slight colds MS like symptoms increase during & after.

[mayb]

Like you skatty I rarely pick up other people's bugs. I was quite amazed when I went down with a sore throat a while back as I can't remember the last time I had a 'normal' illness. I find when other people are fighting bugs I may get a feeling I am about to succumb but then it goes away. I think my immune system goes into overdrive normally at the slightest sign of a bug and I suffer a relapse of symptoms instead. In some ways this makes sense but doesn't explain why so many people with ms do get these bugs and their exacerbations as well. It is all a puzzle I don't ever expect to understand.

[SkattyBell]

Starting a new topic in connection with this thread.

 

Sorry, all!

Oooops! forgot to say where! New topic in MS Tips -

[sylvia]

Hi,

 

Stress definitely makes my symptoms worse, of course it depends on the severity of the stress and symptoms, but even the smallest stress gives me pins & needles, burning & aches straight away atleast into my face and head.

[Hezza]

Having just been through a year which included an MS diagnosis in January, a few relapses in-between and redundancy as the climax just before Christmas I know for definite that stress affects my MS.

I didn't have a full relapse but did suffer an exacerbation of symptoms, old and new, for around 4 weeks after I finished work.

 

Rested up, let it run its course, and now I'm fine - well as fine as I get

[mayb]

I sometimes think that if I could take out the stress in my life I could recover almost totally from my current problems. This is not an option with a Tribunal pending and the money worries that come with losing my job. This has been going on for over a year now and I think some of the damage is permanent. What can you do? Stress is something we have little control over as it comes from outside sources working on our bodies in ways we cannot control either. Once things start going wrong we worry about that and stress is exacerbated too and round we go.

 

Thankfully God invented chocolate!!

[vix]

Last year when I was dx I was at the time studying for my medical exams (which I passed) I was so stressed out that I would not pass I was studying and re-studying everything 6 times over. I was unable to stand up straight or even sit straight and when it came to walking it was as if I had too much to drink!!!! I was slurring my words and couldnt move my left arm where it was suppose to go!!!!

I was actually dx with having a stroke, but a student doctor asked if she could do an MRI and lumber punch so I said yes and it all came back with MS x

[mayb]

Funny Vix I thought I had a stroke when everything went wrong at once the first time. It was all left sided so that was the first thing I thought of. I was referred by my gp to a neurologist straight away and told not to panic I would be seen in about 3 weeks. How do you not panic when someone tells you not to?? I think I saw a neurologist about 10 months later and I still have no diagnosis 14 years down the line.

 

It must have been a shock to you finding out this way. Do you think it would have happened if you weren't so stressed out by the exams? How have you been since that time and did you know much about MS from your training as a doctor?