Chapter 11: Stress is a Choice
I was now eleven months through my year of treatment. I started tapering myself off the methimazole. My goal was to cut my dose in half every other week until I was down to nothing, all the while continuing on the Essiac.
I was currently showing no signs or symptoms of my disease, taking vitamins, supplements, and herbs, was on a modified Paleo/gluten free diet, was gaining a small amount of weight, was working less, resting more, and I had made peace with my new truth.
I had gone through a detox and I believe my immune system was stronger and my body more efficient. I thought I looked better on the outside and I felt better on the inside. I had confronted the physical, psychological, spiritual, and emotional hurdles associated with my disease. Everything was going well. However, I knew there was still more I could do. At the very root of my autoimmune disorder was not only my genetics, but also a certain trigger - stress. And for me, there was only one clearly identifiable stress that remained in my life and it seemed to be the only thing keeping me from my complete health transformation. And that stressor - had a name.
I had struggled for years, trying to avoid the inevitable. It took getting diagnosed with Graves disease and an incident (which ultimately became "the final straw") eleven months later, to force me to face it and deal with it.
Over the last eleven months, I had done what I thought was a fantastic job of rebuilding and strengthening my body and, in particular, my immune system. So why was it….that every time I was under extreme stress, it would take my body two weeks to feel better again? Even this long after my diagnosis? It happened so often that I was able to use these two weeks as a guide as to how well I was handling stressful situations. A lot of stress equaled two weeks of struggling to get myself back into a state of physical balance, even after I had long forgotten about the stressor. A little stress equaled a few hours, or perhaps a day or two.
Now is a good time to revisit the discussion about toxicity, as it relates to personalities and relationships. When you have an autoimmune disorder, you cannot afford to be put in a situation so stressful that you will end up not feeling well for weeks. And when you find yourself in such a situation over and over, with no hope of it ever changing, you will eventually have to do something about it - for your health. So I did. And I think…no, I’m sure… it was the most difficult part of my self healing. I needed to stand up and defend myself and my right to live free of judgments and mistreatment. I have never been one to be vocal about my feelings because I do not enjoy having my thoughts and feelings dismissed as if they are nothing. So I had developed the habit of keeping everything to myself. You know where that gets you? Stressed out to the point of triggering an autoimmune disorder you did not even know you had lying around in your genetic material.
So, as I mentioned, an incident took place (there really are no coincidences) and I found myself in an extremely stressful family situation just after I had begun tapering off my methimazole. The timing could not have been worse. It was the last thing I felt I needed at that point. Although actually, looking back, it probably was exactly what I needed. My placement in certain circumstances of my life, dealing with this same situation over and over, was always going to be a constant stressor for me and now I was physically strong enough to handle it. I could not have handled it a year ago. That’s why The Universe waited until now. I was ready. There was a lesson I needed to learn, and now was the time. The Universe is funny that way. I believe certain people are placed in our lives for a reason. Now, after years of trying to figure it out, the reason was blatantly obvious to me. I needed to continue to evolve on my road to a healthy mind, body, and spirit. I needed to learn how to finally, for the first time in my life, look at myself and declare that I was worthy of being able to express my feelings, even if they were unpopular. I needed to learn that I don’t need to tolerate certain things just to keep the peace. I learned that what you tolerate, you perpetuate. So choose wisely what you are willing to tolerate.
I am not going to suggest that anyone who annoys us or stresses us out should be cut from our lives. Maintaining connection with other human beings is what we are put on this Earth for and we should make every effort to keep the connections intact, as long as they are not detrimental to us. However, for myself, I was convinced there was no hope of my situation ever changing. If I did not do or say something, I was going to be dealing with the physical effects of this stressor for the rest of my life. So what did I do? I finally made my voice heard. I was clear about my feelings and what I intended to do about them. And I followed through. I have never done anything like it in my life. It was so awful, and at a few moments very ugly, but necessary. And I was willing to do it. For me.
We need to revisit the topic of willingness. What are you willing to do for your overall health? How far are you willing to go? What are you willing to do about a person who causes you stress? Are you willing to remove them completely from your life? Are you willing to suffer whatever consequences you may experience? Are you willing to walk away, knowing you will not be spending any more of your life with that person, and perhaps also the people they are connected to? Are you willing to possibly have your entire life change? Are you willing to put yourself first? I was. I was willing to do everything within my power to feel healthy. Everything.
Everybody talks about stress. We all know what it is to be “stressed out”. We can feel it. I felt the aftereffects of it for two weeks sometimes. But what is stress? Can we apply science to the feeling? And why does this feeling trigger a biological autoimmune response? I will do my best to answer this very question below.
Life Lesson #11 - Where there is a will, there is a way.
Graves Disease Note #11 - Let’s start with a review of one basic concept. Thoughts lead to feelings which lead to behaviors. Thoughts are the beginning of everything. They are the part of us that we cannot touch, hear, smell, or taste. They are, in essence, what makes us - us. They trigger feelings that we act upon, actions that are seen in the realm of the physical world. We associate thoughts, the nonphysical part of us, with a physical part of our body - the brain. And, interestingly enough, this is the very place where the stress response begins.
What am I trying to get at? The idea that stress is what you perceive it to be - in your brain. If you don’t think a situation is stressful, the body won’t react by initiating the stress response. Your hypothalamus, pituitary, and adrenals will get a much needed break, as will your circulatory system and thyroid. Bottom line….stress is a choice.
People are always trying to teach us how to handle stress. But that assumes that it has already manifested itself in some way in our lives - a demanding situation at work, conflicts at home, et cetera. It is suggested we turn to things like relaxing music, exercises, deep breathing, learning how to walk away, and others. What would happen if we just learned to control our thoughts? What if we did not perceive those situations as “demanding” or “conflictual”? If we were so at peace with ourselves that nothing could really bother us? If we felt we had all the internal tools necessary to deal with whatever life throws at us? What if stress was not in your emotional vocabulary? I’ll tell you what would happen. You would not perceive situations as beyond your control or weighing heavily on you. You would think you are able to handle everything with ease. Without the perceived threatful situation, the brain will not begin communicating to your nervous, circulatory, and endocrine systems to brace for impact. There will be no cascade effect of the stress response to trigger chemical processes and hormones that will weaken your immune system and activate the antibodies that attack your own body. I don’t know about you, but I think it makes perfect sense.
No one can teach you how to change your thoughts. That’s something you need to work on alone. And it does take work - a lot of work. Just as you sometimes need to learn how to break bad physical habits, such as smoking or over eating for examples, you also need to learn how to break bad mental habits. You may need to change your inner dialogues quite a bit. There are a multitude of books available on metaphysics that might help guide you in the right direction if you choose to seek them out. Some are on my list of favorite books that I posted earlier.
In Graves disease, you can’t escape the fact that you have an antibody built into your genetic material that is always going to act like it is overriding your pituitary. It is going to try to lower your TSH and elevate your T4 and T3. You need to find a way to stop this from happening. Finding a way that works for you of lessening the stress response is one way to do it.
For those of you that are really into the science of the whole thing, read on. If not, I think you get the idea.
The Stress Response System:
When we find ourselves in a stressful situation, our brain begins communicating with the rest of our body through the autonomic nervous system. This is the beginning of the stress response system. We begin to experience an increase in rate of breathing, elevated blood pressure, and a faster heart rate, due to activation of the adrenal glands and a release of adrenaline into the bloodstream. Adrenaline triggers the release of glucose and fats from temporary storage sites into the body. Now the bloodstream is flooded with energy for all parts of the body.
As the initial surge of energy from the adrenaline subsides, the brain activates the second part of the stress response system - the HPA-axis (hypothalamus, pituitary, adrenal). If the brain perceives that the stressful situation is going to continue, the hypothalamus releases a hormone known as CRH. CRH is subject to regulation by cytokines. Cytokines are an amino acid peptide produced by white blood cells and are found in the brain, adrenal glands, and at inflammatory sites. CRH travels to the pituitary gland which triggers the release of another hormone known as ACTH. This hormone travels to the adrenals, prompting them to release cortisol. Cortisol helps the body stay alert for the continued perceived stress. When the stress passes, cortisol levels fall, and the parasympathetic nervous system slows down the stress response. A continually elevated cortisol level negatively affects the immune system.
Cytokines and the HPA-axis:
Stress triggers the release of cytokines from the white blood cells in the brain and adrenals. One of their primary jobs is to induce inflammation. They rush to the site of a wound or infection, but if there is none, there is no place for them to go and they circulate. The result? Constant stress triggers equal constant cytokine circulation in the body, which equals chronic inflammation. Cytokines in the brain stimulate hypothalamic CRH release which leads to pituitary ACTH hormone secretion into the circulation. ACTH leads to adrenal glucocorticoid production and release. This controls the immune response by inhibiting further cytokine production. But what happens when the immune response is not controlled? At high concentrations or with prolonged exposure, inflammatory cytokines can stimulate pituitary ACTH and adrenal cortisol secretion directly. Hyperthyroidism is associated with increased HPA-axis activity, and HPA-axis abnormalities are seen in autoimmune diseases.
Cortisol:
The stress hormone corticosteroid suppresses the effectiveness of the immune system and lowers the number of T cells. T cells (lymphocytes) in the thymus gland control cell mediated immune responses. T cells lock on to infected cells, multiply, and destroy them. Continued elevated cortisol and adrenaline caused by ongoing perceived stress affects antibody production by the immune system. It can lead to an increased risk of autoimmune disease and studies have shown elevated cortisol levels in people with an overactive immune system responding to chronic inflammation (the result of chronic perceived stress). Cortisol also inhibits TSH production. An elevated cortisol level can lower TSH. A lowered TSH and elevated T4 and T3 are seen in Graves disease, multinodular goiters, and toxic nodules.
Antibodies:
In Graves disease, the body produces an antibody to one part of the cells in the thyroid gland. The antibody activates adenylate cyclase by binding to the TSH receptor. This causes production of thyroid hormones. The TSH receptor antibody TRAb acts like the regulatory pituitary hormone. It overrides the normal regulation of the thyroid, causing an overproduction of thyroid hormones, as seen in hyperthyroidism. Antibodies stimulate overproduction of T4 and growth of the thyroid. They are activated by a weakened immune system that is the result of a chronic stress response, which itself is the result of what we perceive stress to be.
- Dorian A., RN, CHLC
www.BioEnergyAromatherapy.com