Posted 11/29/2007 12:45 AM (GMT 0)
I suspect I'm not going to explain this very well....but here goes.
I think it's more of the whole....body/mind/spirit....if that's more in sync, it can ultimately help the body's response to stimuli, whatever that may be. The less excessively the body/mind reacts, the more often the body will understand to not overreact.
I think some of it's an overall learned response...but cummulative.
When I was first diagnosed, the relief was awesome because my other doctor did sweet tweet except a barium enema and to tell me I was lucky I didn't have UC....can I say beeeeotch?
Having a doctor who made no judgements, put me though tests and started treatment conservatively worked well. The ups and downs of regressing were very stressful...I ended up with panic attacks (related to family issues) and I was an emotional mess.
As I learned through my doctor's care to be patient...because I knew what to expect, that became less of an issue for me. He giving me the sole direction to use rectal meds as I saw fit, be it inreasing or tapering... allowed me the freedom to not be dependent on him and to use my own judgement.
Eventually the improvement gave me hope and understanding that it's sometimes an up and down go, but not as much down as up as I was getting more experienced.
Whatever my point is...the bottom line is, for all the autoimmune diseases/disorders I have...the less I react to things emotionally/physically, the less the autoimmune responses have been. Of course, I do use meds for maintenance and for treatment...but again, as conservatively as possible for the least amount of symptoms for long term. I increase if needed and then taper to maintenance. That included asthma and UC...the PSC is hopefully going to stay as it is forever.
In saying all that, I'm sure that if my life has a major crisis....my body and autoimmune responses will too.
quincy