I know certain things can cause pseudo exacerbations, heat for example, so when the heat factor is removed, the exacerbation goes away.
But what about stress?? Does stress cause pseudo exacerbations or does stress bring on ‘real’ exacerbations? (I’m not saying psuedo is not real, just trying to differentiate)
The reason I’m asking is my health has dramatically been going downhill since last summer. (I may have progressive MS as I don’t really have relapses) But during last summer I had a very stressful experience with my son. ( I think I wrote about it here at the time) I am now wondering whether that horrible time has ‘caused’ me to go downhill or would have it just brought on an exacerbation which would have gone away when the stress did??
I hope that makes sense!
x
I think that most of us with MS feel that MS + stress is a bad mix; I certainly do. But that does not answer your question, and I don’t really think it is possible to answer it, because no one knows much about it beyond personal experience. And when it comes to personal experience, your personal experience is a better guide to you than anyone else’s is.
One thing I will say, though, is that we are all prone to over-zealousness when spotting patterns and associations in life. We all remember - very clearly - the bad thing that happened before that relapse kicked off. But our memories of all the other bad things that have happened in our lives that did NOT kick off a relapse tend to be hazier. That’s just the way our brains work, and there isn’t much to be done about it.
For sure, I try to avoid major stress (although major stresses rarely wait to be invited!) in the same way that I avoid getting the 'flu. i.e. take reasonable steps, but accept that there’s a limit to how much I can control things. Filtered word happens: that’s life.
The way I prefer to look at it is: relapses pretty much just happen. There is not much that I or anyone else can do about it. It is never my or anyone else’s fault. It is a mindless disease process. It is just doing its thing: it’s nothing personal.
Alison
x
The research on stress and MS is very confusing with some studies linking stress and relapses, but others contradicting these. It might be because it depends on the type of stress, e.g. chronic vs acute, but I don’t think there’s enough data to be sure.
I think most MSers would say that stress is bad for MS and causes relapses, but as Alison rightly says, our memories may be a bit selective. Personally, I am convinced that my first big relapse was caused by me taking on far too much at work and being under loads of stress as a result. Would it have happened anyway? No idea, but I’d had mini “blips” for many years and never joined the dots - perhaps without the stress this would have been just another blip relegated to “one of those things” without seeing the GP?
Karen x