Stress and symptoms

[CWoods]

Tell me a bit about how stress effects your symptoms. My symptoms are at their worst in the summer so June- September was awful. September-December was ok, good days and not great days but nothing like summer. Then December craziness hit and bam my symptoms came back pretty bad. Finally after 2 months they are starting to get a bit better again.

[SNOOPY]

Hello CWoods,

Unfortunately, stress can cause physical symptoms.
This is true for anyone regardless of health.

Stress has the ability to cause neurological type symptoms.
Usually after the stress has decreased so will the symptoms it created.

Take care.

[CWoods]

I am curious about MS and stress specifically. Neurological symptoms due to stress wouldn't be only on the left side of my body. Curious if anyone knows specifically why MS symptoms worsten under stress.

[0lala0]

A few months ago, my fear of flying for a trip coming up, and the stress it brought me overwhelmed me. It caused a psuedo flair and had just a few symptoms that are typical of a flair for me, come on mild, get worse to their peak then slowly go away over a two week period. Who knows why any of this stupid disease happens, but it does.
Also, the months you are describing could be temperature related? Stress would do it too though. I read somewhere that if you can't calm down a psuedo flair in time, it can turn into the real deal, lasting much longer. I don't know if that's true though, don't remember now where I read it.

[CWoods]

Yes

The summer months are for sure worse because of the heat. If it lasts 3 months can that still be a pseudo flare?

[Mamabug]

C -

For me, stress and MS are related in that stress is usually the trigger for an MS flare. I rarely have a flare without stress precipitating it.

I don't believe, however, that symptoms of illness and stress are specifically related to MS, but to health in general. We all know that stress can contribute to heart attacks, strokes, high blood pressure, etc. Stress also affects, I believe, any chronic illness.

I also believe that multiple types of stress can contribute to illness problems. Emotional stress, physical stress (such as pain, etc), and even "good stress", such as anticipating a happy event.

And, that, not only does stress affect my MS, but, having MS affects my ability to deal with stress. Events that would, in the past, have been "normal" daily stressors that did not impact me in a big way are now often difficult to deal with.

My solution, which it took my years to identify and more years to learn how to do it, is not just to manage stress. But, even more than stress management, I practice stress prevention. For me, this mostly translates into knowing how to say "no" to things that would stress me, and not feeling guilty when I do say "no".

I've decided that, since I do not feel guilty for taking my MS meds, I will not feel guilty for preventing stress. Both are health and wellness strategies.

[CWoods]

Great advice Mamabug. Thanks,