Hi L.I.,
Glad to hear that you’re going to check in with a doctor about your seriously upset stomach. Persistent symptoms like pain, vomiting, rashes and bleeding are the body screaming, “Yo, something’s up!”, and there’s really no substitute for an in-person visit with a healthcare provider. Knowing what’s causing your great discomfort and getting treatment should knock some of your stress out and enable you to more fully and successfully work on managing and reducing some of the other stressors in your life.
If you do have a stomach ulcer, a.k.a., a peptic ulcer, there’s good reason to blame it on stress. Until about 25-years or so ago, stress and spicy foods were widely thought to cause this painful and treatable condition. But then, medical science discovered that a bacterium called Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) is usually the culprit. Many of us host H. pylori at one time or another in the mucous layers of our stomachs and small intestines with little or no obvious impact. For some, the bacterium that can enter us through water, food and maybe even kissing, inflames the lining of the stomach or intestines causing ulcers, which are really wounds. Those who experience symptoms such as the ones you described may have some existing damage in their linings that welcome bacteria to hang out and cause havoc. Causes and factors linked to stomach ulcers include taking pain relievers and other nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), smoking, a lot of alcohol consumption… and stress.
Again, stress doesn’t cause ulcers, but it can aggravate their symptoms—kind of like spraying lighter fluid into an already flaming BBQ. pit. Stress can also slow the healing process of those wounds. Stress has this kind of irritating and button-pushing relationship with many, many other health situations from head colds, to high blood pressure, to herpes.
I hope you feel better soon, L.I., and I’m sure you know that I discuss and teach a variety of stress prevention and reduction ideas in my ever-growing archive.
Les
5/08
