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Anxiety and Crohn'd

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Crohn's Disease
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Posted 2/17/2009 12:45 PM (GMT 0)
Ive noticed that alot of people with Crohn's also suffer from anxiety. Ive dealt with anxiety attacks long before I ever had symptoms of Crohn's and wonder if any of you did as well. The reason I'm curious is because I wonder if high anxiety could be a factor in developing Crohn's disease.
Posted 2/17/2009 12:55 PM (GMT 0)
I have always been a nervous person, yet it was when my dad had triple bypass and valve replacment that I suffered my first full blown anxiety attack. Before the first actual attack I would get D when I was really nervous or upset and had since I can remember (back in high school). All the women in my family develop autoimmune disorders...I was the last one in my generation. I do believe though that my nerves play a HUGE role. Over the last three years I have stopped blaming myself for not being able to handle my nerves and adapted the belief that I need to work with my body to remedy as much as possible my medical issues. I have to admit though when both my family doc and my GI told me that a person who has touchy nerves is not ALL emotionally driven, but it is also a physcial problem it really helped me accept myself.
Posted 2/17/2009 1:17 PM (GMT 0)
I been told many times in my life that I seem laid back and relaxed. I would always laugh because inside I never felt "laid back" at all. I had my first panic attack in 6th grade and now I'm 50 and still have them occasionally. I didnt have symptoms and wasn't diagnosed with Crohn's till I was 19. Being a man, I don't tell many people about my anxiety for fear of seeming like a pansy. I'd rather keep my macho, laid back image and deal with it in private. lol.
Posted 2/17/2009 1:39 PM (GMT 0)
When Crohn's disease was first identified, it was commonly assumed that it was found more often in people who had problems with anxiety and stress management. In the same way, for many years ulcers were thought to have been caused by stress. Neither of these has proven to be true.

In the case of crohn's, current thinking is that the onset of crohn's is not related to one's personality or mental health profile. However, crohn's can exacerbate underlying problems and make functional mental health disorders much worse. To be chronically ill, especially with a disease whose symptoms are so socially isolating and unpredictable can cause incredible reactional anxiety.

Some people's innate coping skills are not as well developed as others and it can require medical intervention, but I think it is as a side-effect of living with a chronic illness, not a part of the expression of the disease itself. Crohn's can manifest itself extra-intestinally -- in the eyes, skin, liver, joints etc, but I don't believe research has been able to establish any such link between crohn's and psycho-pathology.
Posted 2/17/2009 1:50 PM (GMT 0)
My opinion about the medical profession is this.... How can they know what doesn't cause it if they don't know what DOES cause it. Dr's and scientists are handy to have around but there is alot they don't know! There hasn't been a cure for a single disease since the Polio vaccine. Sure makes a person wonder. Maybe there's more profit in treating diseases than curing them. Hmmmmm!
Posted 2/17/2009 3:12 PM (GMT 0)
I have blamed my nervousness and anxiety for getting crohns. I don't have it in my family history or anything. But like other person said it's not just that. Am working on empowering myself and being calm. Seems to be working some.
Posted 2/17/2009 5:46 PM (GMT 0)
Yellowfin- I also share your skepticism of the medical industry, seen my fair share of loss, and the more people I lose to cancer or other illness the more you wonder how dedicated the DRS are for a cure. You know the patients and their families and friends are desperate for the cure but how hard are they really working toward one?

Anyway
I have had bad anxiety my whole life, always got a "tummy ache" before school starting back in pre-school and to this day have bad morning sickness. A lot of D in my childhood and come the time I was a teenager going to the bathroom to poo more than I peed and it was just normal to me. I always got ill when I was nervous, I always had issues with my emotions and my over active belly. After my diagnoses I thought it was my fault from stressing so hard and having an eating disorder. But they say it has nothing to do with it. They told me it isn't my fault.
My anxiety is so intense now with the Crohns that I take multiple medications, attend group, go to a weekly therapy session and still freak out a lot haha.. But I am trying to heal mentally and hope that working my menals out in therapy helps settle my disease. I think you have to attack this illness from all angles.
Posted 2/17/2009 6:08 PM (GMT 0)
Not all people go into the medical profession for money... Some people go into the profession because they have lost a loved one to something like cancer..... or because they genuinely want to help people.... Some of the people working in the medical profession may have problems themselves...

So... I don't think the problem of the cause and the cure can be blamed solely on the money-hungry....

At any rate... to answer your question.... I have had a bad home life, which has resulted in me having anxiety attacks since... well... I'm not sure when I started having them, but I remember having a few at age five... And also, it has caused me to suffer from bouts of depression from time to time. I do not think this caused my disease or is a major factor in developing my disease... but it may have contributed as a trigger.... that, and my obsessive love for sugar. //^_^\\'
Posted 2/17/2009 6:17 PM (GMT 0)
Celey, I've had the best care from Dr's and nurses everytime Ive been in the hospital so I'm not blaming it at that level but I do believe that big drug companies could play a part in keeping cures from being released. I have heard stories of scientists who have discovered cures and then.......silence. A good example is last year when a guy may have found a cure for cancer with radio waves. It was on 60 Minutes. Not a word or a followup has been aired since then. I am very skeptical and until someone proves me wrong I will continue to be.
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