Stressful event years before diagnosed?
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I beleive that stress definitely contributed to my BC. This thread is interesting as I had major stress 6 years prior to my diagnosis. I believe that there were some lifestyle factors like alcohol that also contributed. Good thread.
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I had two life events that occurred 10yrs before diagnosis and then 5yrs before diagnosis...the stress I lived under from 2012-2016 was palpable meaning I had always had a lot of stress and responsibility in my life, but this was different because I lost myself in it, which I had not done before...I usually saved myself pretty well....but I think with all that + perimenopause + what was also depression I sank - I was a high functioning sinker but none the less - I sank...no one else around me could see it, because everyone around me depended on me to be the "strong one" -
When I was diagnosed I talked to my BS about this theory, because I had heard it before and was thinking about everything. She said straight up --> "stress did not cause your cancer, but stress did/can give your cancer a great environment to grow." She told me to consider that thought.... so I have...and do...
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Personally, I think what triggered my cancer was a severe MRSA infection about 10 months before my diagnosis. I had a facial abcess and was in the hospital for 4 days on hardcore antibiotics. I've read that traumatic illnesses can lower your immune system, so what the body would normally be able to fight, it can't. The cancer just takes off and starts duplicating itself fast. It's a real ahole.
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Catlady, hadn't seen you around for a while. I remember that we chatted a few years ago. You'd just finished your chemo, and you were trying to decide whether to have one breast off or both. How are you doing these days?
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wren~ I am so speechless at what I just read about your son. That is so unbearably awful, I don't even have words. That is stress I can't begin to imagine. I am so very sorry for your loss and on top of everything else. Dealing with this beast also. I am sending you a purple heart!
I completely agree with the stress aspect.. good marriage turns to bad marriage..... man doesn't want divorce.... woman does..... women meets man of her dreams.....man doesn't want divorce, gets mean..... gets ugly....1/2 of my turns family against me! Spend next 15 years loving that man of my dreams long distance, by choice to raise his son and my two kids in their schools, DH and I wanted normalcy in slowly building a blended family. We did a great job! Siblings are seamless together. This year finally at the end of it, we will finally to be able to be moving in the right direction to finally be in One Home. Since the day I was put on this earth, I have been stressed. So a hell yes. Stress to me is a definite connection. ~M~
Young girl times:Step monsters mean, controlling and manipulative. Parents divorced since I was four
My teens : stress:: Step monster trying to pretend to be Mom. Then ends up with luekemia. Very ill. Somehow makes it. Is some how even more mean and evil. Lose my fathers relationship because of her games and interferences
Early twenties:: sucked it up and apologized to step monster.... missed my dad. Went well until, had my own children who wanted to control and tell me what to do. She would gossip until the moon turned green. If she could. Lose fathers relationship again when kids are aged 7 and 8. Kids own relationship with their father always shaky!!
Threats to gang up on me to take my kids from ex husband and step monster, due to them finding out about man of my dreams and same man now my DH. 15 later. Can you say loser? So I believe that is where my cancer came from. No history of it in family at all. Makes no sense. Stress terrible. Makes sense. ~M~
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I think we'd be hard pressed to find ANYONE who hasn't experience stress in their life. If we live long enough we'll have some stressful event. My first bout of depression was at age 15. My son's first bout of depression was at age FOUR!
Over the years our family has endured a lot of stressful events-- birth of a severely disabled child, bipolar disorder, extended illness, DHs disability, multiple psychiatric hospitalizations, autoimmune disorders, suicidal ideation, open heart surgery, cancer, loss of parents, more cancer.
There's no getting around stressful events. So, why doesn't everyone have cancer? No clue. I really don't think stress is to blame. In my case, it was gene mutations and I suspect my family has more than one, based on the number of autoimmune disorders and cancer.
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Stress brought on Crohns Disease and I’m positive it did the same with my BC diagnosis. The last 4 years straight have been stre
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I may be one of the outliers here, but I have had very little stress in my life, and here I am with breast cancer. I’ve experienced sad moments and occasions, but I have never been one to internalize stress. In fact, my family has often commented about how at ease I am in the midst of my full and busy life (My husband and I have 4 kids who keep us on our toes). Prior to my breast cancer diagnosis, I had no health issues and I ate pretty well and enjoyedrunning half marathons. I have no idea what caused my breast cancer, but stress has never crossed my mind. My genetic testing was negative, so I’m thinking it may have been environmental.
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Yes. I was under alot of stress from 2006-2014 and was dx in 2017. My tumor was slow growing but believe the stress I was under could have contributed to my cancer....
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You get to adulthood, you're going to have stress. Blaming stress is like saying television causes cancer or having a dog causes cancer or using Q-Tips causes cancer, because you will find a large number of people with cancer who watch TV or have a dog or use Q-Tips. I'm a non-stress person and I collect cancers for an unwanted hobby. I know very high-strung people who lived in a state of constant stress who never got cancer. Who was doing this original "study"? If it wasn't someone affiliated with a major cancer research center, it's piffle. I can post a question on FB and say I'm doing a study. This crabby old bat is tired of people confusing fact and opinion, or thinking they deserve equal weight in a discussion.
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wow. We all respect your opinion and viewpoint. But I think you should also respect others here....we aren't here to bash each others opinions. That isn't the purpose of this forum.....
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I respect science and the medical professionals and reality too much to see those bashed and trashed so often here. We're expected to respect the opinions of people who believe the most outrageous, unscientific claims, but saying anything pro-science is considered bashing others. I thought there were threads for alternative treatments, and I do not post there, but it seems that several threads have now become home to that line of thinking. Guess I'll go into read-only mode on most topics so I don't upset anyone.
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Alice I respect your opinion as do probably all the others on this thread. I can’t speak for them. But I respect yr opinion. We were not trashing any science or medical professionals here.
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I think it is really normal to self-blame with cancer. What is interesting is that no one self blames a person who has tuberculosis or has been an let’s say an elite athlete who suddenly suffered a heart attack. For some fascinating reason, people diagnosed with cancer want to blame something for it, and I often see our own stressful lives as being to blame.
Our brains/minds naturally want to find patterns and make sense of things, when things don’t make sense at all. Like a rape victim trying to make sense of the fact of why was she chosen by her attacker? Did she say, do, wear something wrong? But we all know that is not true.
I have struggled with blaming my cancer diagnosis certain things such as: the titanium screws and mesh screen that was put inside of me to repair an inguinal hernia, the time my dog almost died, because I was sexually molested as a child, because I abused drugs in my teens, because of the bad break up I went through in my early 30s, that I worked in a wood shop around a lot of dust for a couple years, because of how stressed I was in graduate school right before the cancer was discovered. Hard to say!!!
Was the cancer growing for 20 years or 5? This is all a mystery.
I want to blame SOMETHING for my body’s rebellious behavior in becoming a cancerous environment.
Cancer is viewed by so many as the fault of the person with it. It is viewed as something we should have been able to control more, somehow, by many people. That our own toxic emotions caused the cancer.
Meanwhile, there are creatures dating back to the dinosaur era that have had cancer.
I can’t blame myself or my life anymore.
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Hi All, It's been a while since I started this post. I wanted to tell you about an amazing TED talk I watched this morning. It is about how stress does kill you, but only if you think it will! If you don't think stress is harmful, actually having a lot of stress and courage and meaning in your life is good for you, especially if you reach out to people for support and also give support to others (which is what we do every day on this forum!) It has some really important research. I think we should all try to learn from this video so that we can make our bodies healthy while having stress:
How To Make Stress Your Friend, by Kelly McGonigal
https://www.ted.com/talks/kelly_mcgonigal_how_to_m...
Hugs, Caroline.
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Thanks for sharing the TED talk.
I think honestly that some people handle stress better than others. I’m not sure why that is.
And while I have great support and caring loving people in my life, stress has always been something I have difficulty with. Try as I might to change that it's in my inner core how I am and all the support does help but I don't really feel like it necessarily completely goes away-the hurt or whatever caused the stress Not sure if this makes sense?
I grew up with a precious grandmother. I adored her. And looked up to her. She remarried when her children were still at home as her husband who was a real great father and caring loving husband died in his 30s from a heart defect.
Her second husband was not a nice man. Long story but he was a alcoholic and later he was a dry alcoholic. But still emotionally abusing her. Awful guy
We lived with them temporarily at one point and my grandfather was very difficult to live with. I told my gma we were moving out. I wasn't putting up with his behavior. She told me 'oh sweetie just let it roll off yr back don't let him bother you'. We moved out. But her words stuck in my head.
My Gma said to let things roll off my back..how does a person do that!? I've never been able to do that. I'm not sure she could let things truly roll off her back either. She got breast cancer the first time in her 60s. Long story but the second time it came back later many years later and killed her. So how well was she letting stress roll off her back....I don't know. Does stress contribute to causing cancer? Not sure if that's why she got cancer or if that's one reason why I got it?
I have a wonderful family with supportive people. But stress has always been something I have difficulty with. I'm a very feeling caring person and I guess that goes to my core when I'm dealing with negative stress too. Like for example if I've been really hurt by something someone says or whatever the stressor is.
maybe I'm the only one who feels this way. I've tried my whole life tho to let things go without much success.
I do throw myself into manual labor here on our farm tho and that certainly helps release stress. I still love exercising too when I have time
I do appreciate you sharing the Ted talk tho. 🌺Just wanted to share my thoughts on my life experience with stress.
It really is connected to our personality how each person handles stress I think. Some people just don't let things bother them...or at least say they don't. 😊
Have a great day everyone! 💕🌺I’m thankful for this forum.
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I have often wondered about a stressful event myself causing B/C.
My stressful event happened when my mom and dad suddenly passed 13 days apart. Mom was given 3 months to live with lung cancer and only lived 18 days passed her diagnosis. Dad passed 5 days after her diagnosis with a heart attack in the public bathroom of the hospital while visiting her. I found him, they could not revive him. Telling my terminal mom that dad had passed was the hardest thing I have had to d.The day after he passed was their 58th wedding anniversary. He had sent yellow roses to her room.
Four years later I was diagnosed with breast cancer.My oldest sister was diagnosed with breast cancer the day I was done with radiation.
There were 4 of us relatives diagnosed with breast cancer that same year. Ages 45(maternal 1st cousin who lost her mother suddenly to cancer 9 months after my parents passed) My brother's 33 year old daughter was diagnosed 2 months before myself. I was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 44 and my sister at age 60.
After I was done with a hospital stay after internal radiation and tried to return to work. I was told by my boss my job was eliminated because I had been gone so long(I had did some work at home so was not really gone very long since I had internal radiation) I was offered a diff job( basically my old job just less hours) of 3 hours a day and would be required to be on call if needed. iI could not live on 3 hours a day!!
My boss told me when I told her I had breast cancer.”I can’t have you gone, aren’t theirpills for that now?” It’s like she didn’t believe me when I said i had to have surgery, radiation, then possibly chemo, before I could take those” pills” she thought were magic! Ughhh
It has always made me wonder if there was a connection.
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I truly believe this. I was told that your body fights during stress to keep you going. When you calm down it's like your body is drained and takes a break. My father passed away shortly after semi-retiring from a stressful job. Six months later my grandfather died, one month after that my husband up and left, 4 months after that my 19 year old dog died. Then my ex drugged divorce out for over 2 years. When it was all over, the lump was found. I blame stress for all of this.
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I had no more stress than the average 50 year old. Probably less. Wonderful partner, adorable son, loving parents still well and healthy, siblings all more or less happy and healthy. No money worries.
I am slim, non smoker, non drinker, good eating habits, exerciser etc.etc.etc.
Not disrespecting anyone's opinions but facts are facts. I was not stressed and I got BC.
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I think Love from Philly is spot on.
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I live in the Pacific NW where there are thousands upon thousands of christmas trees. I wouldn't consider myself a environmentalist really. But I do think that when helicopters are spraying christmas trees off and on throughout the year that has to affect people. I know the environmental....air we breathe is totally not what it used to be. It doesn't matter if you live in the city where you are breathing car exhaust or whatever else....or if you live in the country where they spray etc.... We are all very affected by the air we breathe. I don't think we often think about this aspect of cancer as well.
I wouldn't blame my cancer on stress.
I am similar it sounds like to trinigirl. I have eaten well my whole life pretty much and keep active. I am thin. Don't drink or smoke. And it still got me. My lifestyle is what they say people should have health wise. I think environment is affecting our world more than we know.....just have wondered about this.
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Seven years ago, I enrolled myself into this community,. that was my stressful days, because of mammogram call back. Since then, I have been on six months follow up list for seven years, then the end the brutal reality is that, six month follow up cannot guarantee early caught, it is already node positive!!
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I absolutely believe that stress led up to my diagnosis. I went through a horrible stressful divorce, lost half of my Family, to the divorce and estrangements for 13 years. Money worries, raising. Kids during the week on my own. Everyday filled with worry about even putting food on the table . Fighting with them inCourt hearings Etc... my childhood was stressful, and since I left the womb or even before I believe I felt the stress And lack of
happiness In the family. I was 4 when parents divorced. And that alone was ugly. Lived in a house with a lot of yelling., and mean behaviors. Drugs, and violence. I was alone a lot. I believe it’s accumulative, it’s gotta go somewhere.0 -
cathy67- I'm very sorry you are facing this. I understand what a tremendous kick in the teeth it is to do the high risk screening only to have such a cancer diagnosis. It sucks and it's not fair. Rant, rage, feel what you feel. Eventually you'll figure out how to keep moving forward. I know it is a terrible shock. Gentle hug.
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yes.I happened for me.I had no doubt....
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Everyone has some very stressful event in their life, or series of events, or terrible year with many difficult things happening. The question isn't whether people who get cancer experienced stress, it's whether people who experience stress get cancer. Yes indeed, some do. And some don't. Point to the science, not to personal anecdotes.
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I 100% agree. Cancer is multifactorial. I truly the believe the way that I process my emotions and life stressors is what started my cancer problems (break ups, miscarriages/preganancy losses) and also what has triggered stage 4 recurrence (new job stresses, father passing away, mother w adv dementia, power of attorney delegations/sibling struggles, emotional disconnection from spouse, etc)… all of it!!
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