arewenearlythereyet
Senior Member
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After reading the thread above I am nervous to use the word stress so I will clarify. Before I got ill my body was in a state of flight or fight due to my work becoming much more busy at work. I was asked to pick up the work of 2 other members of my team of three that left at the same time. This meant me working 14-16hr days for 6 months. This impacted upon my body via less sleep, more stimulants (caffeine/sugar) and high levels of stress hormones being constantly deployed. So when I say stress I dont mean this was a psychological problem, more that my body was in a constant state of flight or fight. This is governed mainly by the hypothalamus pituitary. This means my body was put under a lot of unnatural "stress". The flight or fight mechanism was never designed to be for periods of months, more to keep you out of harms way. That is why it temporarily shuts down or reduces many everyday metabolic processes with a view to switching them back on/ dialling them back up when the danger has passed.
After the 6 months had passed my workload gradually reduced to the normal 8-10 HR days, and it was then that I contracted noravirus (winter vomiting bug). I sort of recovered from this after about a week in bed. A couple of months later I noticed my immune system seemed to be compromised since small cuts were getting infected and taking 8-12 weeks to heal. I then got go a bout of noravirus again and then the fatigue PEM. I was being assessed for numb hands and feet at the time with the doctor and that was when my diagnosis journey began.
Sorry for war and peace but it seems if you don't put context here sometimes people can take the wrong end of the stick and jump down your throat.
I believe that CRH played a role in weakening my immune system before I got ill and that the noravirus only acted as a switch to keep me in a state of permanent shut down, initially started by the flight or fight response. I also believe that I was vulnerable in any case before all this started. The mechanism for the vulnerability I am yet to discover but this may be genetic and based on an inherent inefficient metabolism somewhere. I am not convinced yet that this is an autoimmune disease proper since this seems not relevant to the sequence of my symptoms and the research is at too earlier stage with very little proof. I currently believe in my case this was a sequence of events that led to me becoming ill rather than sudden onset.
Here's a link for those unfamiliar with CRH
http://www.yourhormones.info/hormones/corticotrophinreleasing_hormone.aspx
After the 6 months had passed my workload gradually reduced to the normal 8-10 HR days, and it was then that I contracted noravirus (winter vomiting bug). I sort of recovered from this after about a week in bed. A couple of months later I noticed my immune system seemed to be compromised since small cuts were getting infected and taking 8-12 weeks to heal. I then got go a bout of noravirus again and then the fatigue PEM. I was being assessed for numb hands and feet at the time with the doctor and that was when my diagnosis journey began.
Sorry for war and peace but it seems if you don't put context here sometimes people can take the wrong end of the stick and jump down your throat.
I believe that CRH played a role in weakening my immune system before I got ill and that the noravirus only acted as a switch to keep me in a state of permanent shut down, initially started by the flight or fight response. I also believe that I was vulnerable in any case before all this started. The mechanism for the vulnerability I am yet to discover but this may be genetic and based on an inherent inefficient metabolism somewhere. I am not convinced yet that this is an autoimmune disease proper since this seems not relevant to the sequence of my symptoms and the research is at too earlier stage with very little proof. I currently believe in my case this was a sequence of events that led to me becoming ill rather than sudden onset.
Here's a link for those unfamiliar with CRH
http://www.yourhormones.info/hormones/corticotrophinreleasing_hormone.aspx