Kickas.org Forums Ankylosing Spondylitis General Discussion #1 AS Web Support Group Stress causes AS? Share your story.

I have seen a bunch of information saying that stress might play a role in the development of AS. I recently got done reading a book by Bruce Lipton, A cell Biologist, who explains that your DNA is ONLY triggered through environmental factors. Without getting into all the scientific mumbo jumbo, DNA is incapable of activating itself. It requires environmental stimuli to kick in, and depending on that stimuli, different aspects of your DNA are activated. But on the other hand, different people react different ways to the same situation. The way you react has a direct impact on the body through the mind body connection. Maybe its not the environmental stimuli that cause, but the way we react to environmental stimuli that causes disease? There is a direct link to intensely stressful situations and Rheumatoid Arthritis, and I'm curious if the same is true with AS.

Getting into as much details as you feel comfortable with, was there any extremely stressful events that occurred in your life in the years or months before you got your AS symptoms?

The answer for me is yes. I lived went through a prolonged stressful period with extremely stressful situations coming from all aspects of life. In a way, I got sort of "disconnected". This went on for about two years. After a while I was unable to feel as much joy or pain as I used to feel. During this time I developed acidic/ burning stomach problems. This is directly linked to stress as stress raises the levels of acidity in your body. I think I was stuck in a chronic fight or flight response.

I feel that stress was the most obvious factor that lead to me getting AS. I don't have the HLA B27 gene either. Is there anyone else here who feels stress is the most likely cause for their AS? Anyone else without the HLA B27? I look forward to hearing your responses.

Hi 007 - well, I am HLA-B27 negative (as inded are many KAers). As for the 'start' of AS. Hmmmmmmm. Don't think various bouts of food poisoning helped followed by IBS - DDx all those years ago as 'spastic colon'(same thing, just a name change). Then in the early 90s full blown AS with the typical AS problems. Stress not involved.

Stress might exacerbate but, don't think it causes AS.

I believe stress will bring on my AS. This sounds terrible, but when I was about 18 or 19 I went to a psychic just for fun. Well, she said many things that were absolutely true about my life. Then she told me my future. One of the many things she said that have ended up happening, she said stress would be the biggest problem for me in my twenties, which could cause some real issues. She said around the time I become 30, I will have worked those things out and should go on to live a normal healthy life.

Well, I have always had extremely high anxiety and always considered myself stressed out. Several of my biggest flare ups were right before an anticipated event that caused me to stress out. I actually believe that when the psychic said I would work things out around 30, it relates to me recently learning about
NSD. I will be 27 in December, and since it takes many people years to completely work out kinks in diet, I hope she is right that by the time I'm 30 I will be back to normal. I know it is terrible that I went to a psychic, and the fact that I am "living" by what she said, but I can't help to think about it's seriousness. Stress also can compromise your digestive system, so that part can be true if you believe in the klebs theory.

Hi, Prost007:

Every time I hear about "stress," I think about Carol Sinclair's book where she describes her life as nearly stress-less, compared with her friends who were having marital issues, money problems, etc. THEY never got AS, but she did!

And I also think of Dr. Barry Marshall who PROVED that ULCERS were NOT caused by stress, but by a bacterium. Another Australian has proven AS is caused by a different bacterium.

To be fair, stress is a minor factor and can certainly at times exacerbate AS, but it in no way is causative.

We have environmental factors, and we respond to them with different parts of our genetic composition, but there is one environmental element that is many orders of magnitude more influential than all the others combined, because we are so intimately interwoven with it.

I don't want to trivialize AS by suggesting that remission could so easily be achieved by any method, but especially from elimination of STRESS. Were it so, I would have got me to a monastery decades ago,

HEALTH,
John

I think you'll find that there are many studies that find a direct link between stress and immune compromise...

My history: HLA B27 -ve

15 yo - best friend died of leukaemia, 2 months later I developed glandular fever...

By 16 yo I had developed PAT (cardiac arrhthymia) and my dad was Dx lung cancer..

By 17 yo I had developed asthma, I was in my senior year of high school and struggling to study hard enough to get into medicine as my dad had died...

By 18 yo I was having severe inflammation in my thoracic spine - initially diagnosed as severe Scheuermann's Disease... but it never "burned itself out" by 21 as I was reassured it would...

Gradually inflammation involved my whole spine, pelvis and hips...I've had more then my fair share of tendinopathies, too.

These days I have an USpA diagnosis and since going NSD 2.5 yrs ago, my intractable asthma has pretty much disappeared.

Not sure *which* of those stresses was the trigger (I suspect glandular fever..) but chronic stress like this could very well be a trigger...

With me, I think that "stress" (I'm still not sure what it is) could lead me to not looking after myself so well, not noticing that I'm pushing myself too hard, making some not so good choices, etc, all of which could contribute to how and how badly I get ill, but I can't see a straight cause-effect relationship in me at all. In fact, some of the most "stressful" times of my life have been when I have coped far better physically and made better healthy changes, including successfully giving up smoking at a time when everything else in my life was going haywire and nobody believed I could do it.

If I do end up with an AS diagnosis, then I am pretty sure I can track back first symptoms of it to when I was between 8 and 10 years old - that time of my life would have been some of the absolutely least stressful, most happy times. I was seldom ill enough in childhood to take even a day off school, so no real physical stresses either.

Yes, I'm sure stress can make things feel worse. Yes, I suspect there is some biochemical thing going on with stress that could let your body's guard down and allow disease to creep in. But no, for me its not that clear. I blame genes far more for my tendency to inflammatory arthritis.

My inital sx started when I worked a very stressful job. When you get started with problems you don't "think" about keeping these issues long term, you think that you will heal and get on down the road. My issues started with heal pain, dx'd with plantar facsitis in 20's along with and ulcer in stomach causing reflux. Then I went on to have irritable bowel sx with aches and pains in late 20's. In 30's offical dx of chrons from one gastro and then a second opionion was that I had spastic bowel issues.

Later in 30's a third opinion was that I have ulcerative colitis or chron's and then late 30's revealed that I had artiritis (psoratic) and now this year they say it is AS. Still live with bowel issues and waiting on dx with MS sx. I have researched MS and carefully thought about wether the bowel issue could be caused by MS and have decided that based on my colonoscpies that it is not because of possible MS since I have actual chrons findings in bowels. I also have to wonder about the artiritis dx and wether it could be MS that caused these sx that gave me the artiritis dx.

I am thinking I still have artiritis because of MRI finding in my back and some sx that don't correspond to MS such as changes in my skin related to psorisis and stiffness in my back which doesn't permit me to bend like normal people can bend. In my opinion I believe my stress opened a door that let in things that cannot be gotten rid of. I am HLA-B27+ btw. and a smoker because of stress related nervousness. Have psorisis and artirtis in my father's genes.

My life has never been easy and stress has been plentiful even at a young age.

So I believe that yes stress can open the door to these issues, but I don't think it causes it, I believe genes hold the "cards" to starting AS, and genetically some of us are predisposed to possible illnesses such as chrons and AS.

Nay. That's my vote. My arthritis was totally under control with few (though wicked) flares from age 10 or so until age 49. Then I developed an allergy to NSAIDS and the fight was on. During those almost 40 years of taking NSAIDS I actively exercised and ate well for pain reduction, prayed, meditated while growing flowers, etc. Had rolfing, massage, accupuncture. But when the NSAIDS started poisoning me, there was NOTHING that made the pain stop except Cymbalta, swimming, and narcotics when needed. And one of my sisters got RA when she was 3, but has always tested RF-. I don't think the doctors have a clue about most ailments, but I'm glad they can do tune-ups, surgeries, and give me meds.

Oh I think how you handle stress is a big part of it! Some people thrive on it, cliff divers, professional boxers, those nuts who use hang gliders and fly around mountains...others go into complete "fight or flight" mode and they start sweating and their pulse goes up when they can't find their car keys!!

As a child, I always had digestive upsets whenever I was stressed. If I had tests, I would get diarrhea. I frequently came down with a fever on Thursday nights and missed many Fridays at school. Mom said it was too much stress at school. I didn't have any joint or back pain until I was 19. I didn't connect stress at work and back pains until I was in my 40's. Now, I know that my AS will get worse when I am facing the stress of cleaning, shopping, cooking and fitting in all the extra activities during the Holidays. Is it the stress or the weather?

I know that I had a terrible UC flare while jumping through all the legal hoops to adopt our baby granddaughters. At the same time, I was having so much knee pain I could hardly run to get to the bathroom. I have learned to plan ahead and to try to avoid adding on anything that will bring extra stress. I do my Christmas shopping all through the year. I cook and freeze foods ahead of time. I have also learned to put on blinders so I won't see if my house isn't perfect. When guests come, I tell myself that they are here to see us, not the house.