Were you stressed/burned out when you got lyme?

Gabore Mate (Canadian Dr, author )
speaks about how chronic stress impacts our health.
Talks about the stress response and cortisol.

He’s amazing - highly recommend you watch/listen

I was working full time and trying to take care of my elderly father’s needs - visiting him after work - then going home to make dinner - and take care of the family’s needs. After a few years of this - I crashed.

How about you?

He discusses autoimmune diseases -and ALS



https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=c6il8wvymms

Interesting, Girlie. I was also in a very long term stressful situation when diagnosed with Lyme.

Thank you for posting the link.

Except I've been told that undue stress can lead to a compromised immune system which, in turn, can leave a person more susceptible to infections, etc. There are many cases of folks who have Lyme and other tick borne infections who are able to fight them off better than others. Immunity issues play a significant role.

I was working 60-70 hours per week plus maintaining property and remodeling s house on the weekends and my vacations. I also had fallen off of a roof and just when I started to heal I was in a head on collision on the highway. Not my fault guy passed out at wheel and plowed right into me. I was constantly in pain from the crash for a long time. Job was very stressful. All of it together had me beat down.

duncan said...
Everybody is under a lot of stress a lot of the time. You equate trauma and or/stress with acquiring Lyme - and it sticking around - and you are playing into the wrong hands.Recall "the aches and pains of everyday life"? That is the crowd that ultimately benefits from this line of thinking.

TBD's are TBD's irrespective of stress.

I didn’t have pains/physical complaints prior to lyme symptoms.

First of all, dubious claim. Prove it.

Second, so what? You still were infected by Lyme, likely other pathogens as well, same as people who were not stressed. Same as people who were riding high or on an even-keel - but still got their world turned topsy-turvy..

This, as far as I can see, falls back on the correlation does not equate to causation adage.

Best case, this is an exercise in chasing windmills. Worst case, we are undermining our own claims about the ongoing and pernicious virulence of Bb, Babs, rickettsia, bart, etc.

If you doubt the psych school isn't salivating for these sorts of tidbits, I suggest you start studying what is/has been happening in the UK and the better part of Europe with the BPS nonsense.

Borrelia happens regardless of your mood.

Duncan,

Chill out, man. Stop attacking people. We are free to share our experiences and believe how we choose. If this particular topic disturbs you, you don’t have to respond to this thread.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24798553/

“ Thus, short-term stress can enhance the acquisition and/or expression of immunoprotective (wound healing, vaccination, anti-infectious agent, anti-tumor) or immuno-pathological (pro-inflammatory, autoimmune) responses. In contrast, chronic stress can suppress protective immune responses and/or exacerbate pathological immune responses. “

"Might stress impact the immune system? Maybe. There are plenty of studies which suggest stress might."

Well there ya go! I don't think that comment or Girlie's comments equal a slippery slope down hypochondria hill.. wouldn't be the first thing to bring up to PCP when talking about Lyme of course, but it's surely a factor. If we're painting a complete and accurate picture.. then we need to be able to talk about all factors without getting too emotional.

For me, a lengthy period of minimal sleep was the stressor (+ many tick bites)

i think Duncan raises a fair and valid point that - due to the lack of training, knowledge, and subsequent inbuilt biases, Primary Care Physicians will often latch onto any convenient "evidence" in the form of statements from a patient - that will enable them to stay in their comfort zone - confirm their existing biases and allow them to avoid admitting to themselves and patients they have no clue what is going on.
This is sad and frustrating.

i do think it's also true that there are larger organizations and parties with vested interests at a higher level who wish to keep the status quo - and that phycological or patient blaming explanations for chronic Lyme disease may play into their hands. However, I tend to doubt what any patient believes or tells his doctor, will influence these people or organizations much, as they are very much set on their course for their own reasons and many layers removed from the patient.

so I think it would be wise to draw a distinction between how we should best converse with our PCP - and what model we should use in our own private calculations and reasoning around our health and recovery from Lyme disease.

i am not much use to anyone while I am still ill and to be of benefit I need to get my health back on track so my primary focus is on what levers can I pull in order to make that happen.
ignoring the role stress management ( or lack of it ) plays in overall health because of concerns around how the language around this might be misused in the outside world is rather like throwing the baby out with the bathwater in my view.

I have lived with Lyme disease for long enough to know that there is no single magic cure, that recovery involves lining up many many factors simultaneously, and that caring for your general health are some of the best things you can do to aid recovery. That message is illustrated time and time again as a significant part of the solution when reading the accounts of many of the people who have recovered from chronic Lyme here and elsewhere.

i believe the evidence is pretty much overwhelming even in the scientific medical world now that lifestyle factors such as Sleep, Diet, Exercise, and Stress Management are fundamental to good health for everyone in the wider population - but especially if you are dealing with a chronic infection.

it is just so at odds with the paradigm we have all grown up with since around 1950, that science will come up with a solution for everything, that many of us have a hard time accepting it - even now that the cracks are appearing in stark relief on issues such as climate change, species loss, plastic polluting our biosphere, and pandemics with no quick easy solution.

duncan: I think we all accept the role of infections here. This is a Lyme forum after all.. it's not a place where ambiguity of the term "stress" will be weaponized against us.

I'm concerned that you might think this topic should be off limits...

As for doctors, none of mine implied it was psychosomatic or hypochondria. They tried in the beginning and tested me for what they knew about but never solved the mystery.

I thought I had some unidentified autoimmune illness, as I knew something had gone wrong in my immune system. I went to Mayo and was tested for all kinds of stuff, including autoimmune. They found nothing.

When I went to a Functional MD years later, she did different tests that confirmed my immune system was not normal and I had biomarkers for chronic inflammation that regular docs were unfamiliar with. When my PCP saw those tests, he knew what he was seeing wasn’t normal and it was not all in my head.

Yes, I had high stress and trauma around my father's Alzheimer's. He got sick when I was only 19 years old. Then I had very high stress around my work and often working after midnight. I regularly worked 50 hours+ a week and I worked out very hard 5 times a week. I was also living abroad in different countries and had a great time, but I think it also stressed me a bit.
But I first got sick from living in mold, I think I got Lyme after that, but not sure.
I would love to work/study less than I do now but I got to put food on the table.