Psychosomatic vs chronic stress

[Rufous McKinney]

Oh no! They tried to get you with the dreaded Happy Pamplet?

Oh yeah, all the ladies in the Pamphlet Smile, and demonstrate great Joyfulness!

 

[Snow Leopard]

I've never suffered from chronic stress so I wouldn't know about that. But acute stress tends to reduce my symptoms, or at least I notice them less. Albeit the whole experience still negatively affects my mood (as such, I wouldn't like to maintain a state of constant stress).

 

[Rufous McKinney]

It was never suggested to me by a doctor that it was psychiatric or psychosomatic (which I'm not sure are the same thing).

I know YOU hung it up, but I"m diverting myself from some actual task I have to accomplish.

From a bit of reading- psychosomatic as it is used in the US is- an illness with real physical symptoms...that may be significantly affected by psychology, stress etc. Its not 'made up" by the mind...

Now I just encountered this amazing statement with a citation in Wikipedia..

"On the other hand, psychosomatic medicine criticizes the current approach of medical doctors disregarding psychodynamic ideas in their daily practice. For example, it questions the broad acceptance of self-proclaimed diseases such as gluten-intolerance, Lyme disease and Fibromyalgia as a gain of illness for patients to avoid the underlying intra-psychic conflicts eliciting the disease, while at the same time, challenging the reasons for this neglect in the doctors’ own avoidance of their emotional intra-psychic conflict.[13]"

Wow isn't all that a mouthful. I looked briefly at the citation...more of this gobblygook.

 

[Rufous McKinney]

What she actually meant was that chronic stress feeds into the symptoms, which I agree with. But she couldn't see the difference between emotional stress (causing psychosomatic illness) and chronic stress.

Further research on this topic yesterday resulted in stumbling upon this You Tube video from the Doctor who runs the Fibro clinic at one of the Mayo Clinic's in the US (these are supposedly our most fabulous Hospitals).

So here I learned that: this director of their fibro clinic is a Pain Psychologist. So thats where they've placed Fibro...under Psychology. (the video was about fibro and CFS, and that those may be related).

She believes we have a Central Nervous System hypersensitivity disorder or some such thing.

There is another video on Treatments...from this clinic- I may watch it..what the heck.

 

[Wishful]

Do psychiatrists get paid by the word?

 

[Rufous McKinney]

Do psychiatrists get paid by the word?

yes, apparently.

So here is the Mayo Treatment video. Here I learned that- if I were to sign up for their help, they do not utilize pharmaceuticals; that instead, they will provide me and my family with a TWO DAY CLASS.

They will work on the Bad Mood- created by these illnesses.

After that class: you'll rate it as Excellente.

And then: you'll have the tools to GET YOUR LIFE BACK.

WOW

 

[PracticingAcceptance]

I rather don't think these topics fall neatly into discreet boxes. Its humans who think things fall into neat boxes.

I get your point, but if humans have made up the ideas, then we ought to be able to comb them out and make sense of them too. This is the academic in me, wanting to make sense of things and get my understanding straight. I'd love to be able to make a diagram of how all this interconnects.

I've never suffered from chronic stress so I wouldn't know about that. But acute stress tends to reduce my symptoms, or at least I notice them less.

That's the first time I've heard anyone with ME/CFS say that stress reduces symptoms. You're exceptional.

The idea with chronic stress is that everyone is chronically stressed in this digital fast paced age. It might be compounded by being an over achiever or perfectionist or being anxious or PTSD. In the past I never thought of myself as chronically stressed, because it was all I knew. Since I've got ill, I've been the most calm I've ever been - in patches. When acute stress hits, I'm very sensitive to it these days.

@Rufous McKinney Central Nervous System hypersensitivity is how the clinic I went to in the UK explained hypersensitivity to pain when you have ME/CFS. It does make sense from a biological perspective. Multiple systems get deregulated and have a knock on effect on each other. It's fed by stress but I don't think it has to include stress.

 

[duncan]

It does make sense from a biological perspective.

No, it does not.

It's fed by stress but I don't think it has to include stress.

This is simply not relevant to sustained organic illness. Probably not relevant to sustained inorganic illnesses either.

 

[PracticingAcceptance]

@duncan ok.... whatever you say. I'm not educated enough in science to be able to argue with you. Just repeating what I've been taught. This is the handout from the clinic I went to. I'm sure you'll delight in disagreeing with it.
https://www.epsom-sthelier.nhs.uk/download.cfm?doc=docm93jijm4n9647.pdf&ver=23810

 

[Rufous McKinney]

This is the handout from the clinic I went to. I'm sure you'll delight in disagreeing with it.
https://www.epsom-sthelier.nhs.uk/download.cfm?doc=docm93jijm4n9647.pdf&ver=23810

I looked at quite a bit of that...Its understandably emanating from the British approach to ME CFS....

While I believe we all have something to gain from better understanding our owns psychologies, I do not believe the majority of what we are dealing with stems from- Worry and Stress.

And it came with a Diagram! Already.

 

[Wishful]

Nope, there wasn't any significant worry or stress in my life when ME struck. Of course, reality can't conflict with the psychiatrist's desire of 'what should be', so I must have hidden my worries and stresses, and I'd need many hours (or years) of counselling to reveal it (or manufacture it).

Well, there was one dream where I knew I had buried someone's body in my garden, and I woke up feeling really worried about that.

 

[duncan]

"Prolonged and persistent stress" (as mentioned in your attachment @PracticingAcceptance) is not considered by any current reputable ME/CFS expert that I am aware of as a cause of ME/CFS.

Prolonged and persistent stress is suggested by some corners of the psych community as a cause, in particular the BPS cabal. Personally, I think we'd be better served reading Tarot Cards for direction.

 

[duncan]

I saw a post by an ME/CFS sufferer on Facebook where she said that the illness is partly psychosomatic. What she actually meant was that chronic stress feeds into the symptoms, which I agree with.

Sorry, but both statements to me appear off the mark. ME/CFS is NOT psychosomatic, and chronic stress does not feed the illness.

First, for me the idea of psychosomatic is flawed, if not in theory, then at least in practice. The operative thing here is whether a symptom cluster is sustained; it's similar to the concept of placebo in that regard.

Second, the idea of chronic stress feeding symptoms seems backwards. Rather, when present, perhaps it's more likely a symptom precisely because we are talking about chronicity, ie, it's not a cause or perpetuating factor, but more likely a downstream effect of something.

This stress thing emphasized by the psych school is little more than a red herring. It's like letting a psych tell you stress caused a love one's cancer or MS or flu or....

 

[PracticingAcceptance]

I do not believe the majority of what we are dealing with stems from- Worry and Stress.

I don't believe that ME/CFS is caused by stress. If that were the case, it would be a much more common illness.

Despite what you believe @duncan, I do think there's validity in the idea that the mind and body are interconnected and that stress can add to health issues. There's basic examples, like stress causing a tense jaw causing a headache.
In my experience of the illness, as with many other people, if I am worried about something (eg when my brother got cancer), my symptoms get worse. Surely it makes sense that if I'm not spending energy worrying, my body can use that energy for something else - maybe healing?

I feel this is getting off topic though - from my perspective there's no doubt that the mind and body are connected. I still don't feel sure about how to articulate the difference btwn psychosomatic factors (which I don't think applies to ME/CFS in the majority of cases) and stress (which I think probably does apply to many cases as a perpetuating factor rather than as a cause).

 

[duncan]

I still don't feel sure about how to articulate the difference btwn psychosomatic factors (which I don't think applies to ME/CFS in the majority of cases) and stress (which I think probably does apply to many cases as a perpetuating factor rather than as a cause).

Do you think stress is a perpetuating factor of blindness? Do you think stress is a perpetuating factor of a broken leg? Do you think stress is a perpetuating factor of pancreatic cancer? Do you think stress is a perpetuating factor to Bartonella? Malaria?

 

[pamojja]

Do you think stress is a perpetuating factor of blindness? Do you think stress is a perpetuating factor of a broken leg? Do you think stress is a perpetuating factor of pancreatic cancer? Do you think stress is a perpetuating factor to Bartonella? Malaria?

We know so little. Who knows? In some cases it might be.

What made me think that it at least is a possiblity was the work of a Phd who worked in cancer patients counceling, where she came accross some cases of unexplainable 'spontanious remission'. Getting really courious about, she searched the literature and found 100s of such case studies. Totally perplexed that all these succesful cancer cases have been put at acta, without being even asked what they might have done differently, she set out to do just that. Interviewed spontanious remission survivers, and analyse what she found:

During the course of the study, Kelly identified more than seventy-five factors that cancer survivors said they used as a part of their healing journey. Nine of these factors were used by almost every one of them. They are as follows:​

​

1. Radically change the diet​

Let your food be your medicine, and medicine your food (Hippocrates)​

- avoid sugar, meat, dairy products and processed foods​

- eat lots of fruits and vegetables​

- limit to organic food​

- drink only filtered water​

​

2. Take control of health​

Action is the basic key to success (Pablo Picasso)​

- actively participate​

- be prepared for change​

- resolve resistance​

​

3. Follow your own intuition​

In vital matters, the decision should come from the unconscious, somewhere from within (Sigmund Freud)​

- listen to body signals​

- activate the intuition​

- find the right change​

​

4. Take herbs and food supplements​

The art of healing comes from nature and not from the physician (Paracelsus)​

- help digestion: digestive enzymes, prebiotics and probiotics​

- boost the immune system: e.g. Vitamin C, other vitamins (B12, D3, K2), fish oil, trace elements, certain edible fungi, aloe vera; and hormones (melatonin)​

- detoxify the body:​

- antimycotics (eg olive leaf extract, celery, nettle)​

- antiparasitic substances (eg wormwood, yellow root, black nut husks)​

- antibacterial and antiviral (eg garlic, oregano oil, Pau d'Arco)​

- liver detoxification (eg milk spotted dwarf, dandelion root, sweet tooth root)​

- supplements alone is not enough​

​

5. Release oppressed emotions​

Anger is an acid which can cause much greater damage to the vessel in which it is stored than to what it pours (Mark Twain)​

- disease is blockade​

- what are suppressed emotions?​

- stress and cancer​

- anxiety and cancer​

- the waterfall solution​

​

6. Enhance positive emotions​

The meaning of life is to be happy (Dalai Lama)​

- what are positive emotions?​

- what are the positive emotions in the body?​

- happiness must be practiced daily​

- but one does not have to be permanently happy​

​

7. Allow social support​

In poverty and misery, friends are the only refuge (Aristotle)​

- experience love​

- do not feel alone​

- physical contact​

​

8. Deepen the spiritual connection​

This is the greatest mistake in the treatment of diseases: that there are doctors for the body and physicians for the soul, where both can not be separated (Plato)​

- experience spirituality​

- a third kind of love​

- the relationship between the physical and the spiritual​

- it is important to exercise regularly​

- it is important to calm the mind​

​

9. Have strong reasons for life​

People say that it is the meaning of life that we all seek. I do not believe that this is what we are really looking for. I believe what we are looking for is an experience of being alive ... (Joseph Campbell)​

- placing deep trust in one's inner being​

- the mind directs the body​

- find one's calling​

​

http://www.radicalremission.com/​

Again, these radical remission survivors are really rare. And I don't think such strange obsessive personality traits, as these survivers exposed, could ever be trained, if not already there somehow. But who knows? Kelly certainly believes in it, and now teaches just that.

No way such rare cases should ever be used for patient blaming.

 

[duncan]

We know so little. Who knows?

That's my point. These psychobabblers either a)Don't know, but pretend they do, or b) Actually believe it's true based on little to no blinded studies. It amounts to little more than faith healing. It's being promulgated by individuals who see their livelihood going the way of the horse-drawn carriage.

If you have, say, an infectious disease, you go to an ID doctor. You don't go to a psych. They are no more qualified to treat your infectious disease than a toddler selling lemonade would be to sell you a shot of Irish Whiskey.

 

[pamojja]

That's my point. These psychobabblers ..

If you have, say, an infectious disease, you go to an ID doctor. You don't go to a psych.

I don't think your point is realy questioned in this thread. I had cardiovascular disease, I went to cardiologists, and found their proposed interventions were useless at best, harmful at worst. And did my own thing.

I also went to a psycho-therapist for psychological reasons. And found him just as incompetent, and did my own thing. And so on with every specialist.

The most out-lier was an Orthopedist, who after hearing of my alternative interventions healing a otherwise deathly spondilodiscitis years ago, commented: 'What heals is always right.' And: 'you better stay away from conventional MDs'. I also didn't comply.

Psychobubblers, or Cardiobubblers? No difference!

Levels of Evidence Supporting American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association and European Society of Cardiology Guidelines, 2008-2018.

In my opinion Cancerbubblers - with the average in 5-year mortality improvement of only 3% compared to placebo (all cancers taken together) - are not a iota better either. And after having informed myself in consulting with them, I probably would just as well do my own thing again.

However:

I feel this is getting off topic though - from my perspective there's no doubt that the mind and body are connected. I still don't feel sure about how to articulate the difference btwn psychosomatic factors (which I don't think applies to ME/CFS in the majority of cases) and stress (which I think probably does apply to many cases as a perpetuating factor rather than as a cause).

The problem I think, which makes it so difficult to articulate the difference of psychosomatic or stress factors in respect to the interconnection of body and mind with disease, is that there are unknown factors compounding it differently in individuals (maybe that's the reason Kelly found a staggering 75 factors, of what patients did differently for radical remission?). Only way to know at an individual level could be trying interventions addressing psychosomatic factors, and trying interventions addressing stress, and monitoring the difference.

 

[duncan]

The problem I think, which makes it so difficult to articulate the difference of psychosomatic or stress factors in respect to the interconnection of body and mind, is that there are unknown factors confounding it differently in individuals. Only way to know at an individual level could be trying interventions addressing psychosomatic factors, and trying interventions addressing stress, and monitoring the difference.

Might as well go to your clergy. Or a good bartender. Or a neighbor with a considerate ear.

Mind body? You do appreciate the mind is primarily a symptom/manifestation of the body? That mind/body pluralism is a false dichotomy?

 

[pamojja]

Might as well go to your clergy. Or a good bartender. Or a neighbor with a considerate ear.

With the general level of knowledge encountered in specialists, always with thorough investigation afterwards, that is true. One could go just as well for a cup of coffee, before investigating oneself.

You do appreciate the mind is primarily a symptom/manifestation of the body? That mind/body pluralism is a false dichotomy?

Well, I don't believe in false dichotomies. But then we would have to go off into discussing religious beliefs, which isn't allowed here. And again off topic from the existential and experiental observation, that there are mental and physical phenomena, the unknown, and how they are all one and relate.