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CATEGORIES OF REPORTED STRESSFUL EVENTS.

Event. No. of Times Reported

1. Illness or problems with close Family Member .........................107

2. Job Stress .......................................................................................54

3. Events related to home or car (theft/repair) ................................52

4. Sudden personal discomfort (not related to MS) ...................... *52

5. Death of distant Relative/Friend ..................................................35

6. Financial problems ........................................................................31

7. Death of close Family Member ....................................................29

8. Illness or problems with distant Relative/Friend ......................... 28

9. Illness/death of pet .......................................................................27

10. Problems in relationship/marriage .............................................. 24

11. Stress related to Holiday ..............................................................18

*Encompasses pain (gastric, dental etc), physical trauma,

minor surgery, occurrence of sudden negative emotions.

Discussion.

In patients with Multiple Sclerosis the experience of at least one stressful event during a period of four weeks was associated with double the risk of an exacerbation within the following week.

The mechanism behind increased stress and the induction of inflammatory activity in a disease such as MS is not yet fully understood.

Conclusion.

Stressful events were associated with increased exacerbations in relapsing remitting MS.

This association was independent of the triggering effect of infections or exacerbations of MS.

Stress.

Is it an adaptive response, mediated by individual characteristics and / or psychological processes, that is a consequence of any external action, event or situation that might place a physical and / or psychological demands upon a person

Or is it that external circumstances do not have any intrinsic capacity to produce stress, but instead their effect is mediated by the individual's perceptions, capacities, and understanding.

Stress, however caused may lead to alarm, resistance to alarm rises within you leading to exhaustion due to the effort of adapting to the stress or fighting against it.

Whatever the reason stress will lead you down the path to;

Emotional exhaustion ~ Depersonalisation ~ Reduced sense of personal accomplishment, you may experience some or all of these emotions.

Avoid stress like the plague - stress is an enemy of you and a friend of MS ........ !

Chronic Stress May Worsen Multiple Sclerosis

Animal study links interleukin-6 to increased risk of infections and severe MS symptoms.

Chronic stress releases cytokines that may exacerbate central nervous system infections and neurodegenerative diseases such as multiple sclerosis, according to animal research presented this week at the annual convention of the American Psychological Association in San Francisco, Calif.

Mary W. Meagher, Ph.D., of Texas A&M University in College Station, and colleagues subjected mice to social stress and Theiler's murine encephalomyelitis virus infection, which causes demyelination similar to human multiple sclerosis.

The researchers found that the stressed mice had higher levels of interleukin-6, which was associated with increased severity of the infection and subsequent multiple sclerosis-like symptoms. They also found that the administration of an interleukin-6 neutralizing antibody during social stress helped weaken the infection and reduce symptoms such as motor impairment, inflammation in the brain and spinal cord, and the viral level in the central nervous system.

"This paper provides evidence that blocking the stress-induced increases in cytokine activity during the stress exposure period can prevent the adverse effects of social stress," the authors write. "This suggests that interventions designed to prevent or reverse the stress-induced increases in cytokine activity may be able to prevent or reverse some of the negative health effects of social conflict in humans."

Multiple Sclerosis & Stress

Many MS sufferers report either a worsening of symptoms or the inducement of an attack during stressful events.

The following extracts are taken from the British Medical Journal, Volume 327, September 2003. “Self reported stressful life events and exacerbations in Multiple Sclerosis prospective study (abridged version).

This study was part of the Rotterdam study conducted between July 1997 & December 1999.

Objective:

To study the relation between self-reported stressful events not related to Multiple Sclerosis and the occurrence of exacerbations in relapsing-remitting Multiple Sclerosis.

Participants:

Patients aged between 18-55 years who could walk with a stick.

Main outcome measure:

The risk of increased disease activity as measured by the occurrence of exacerbations after weeks with stressful events.