Just wondering...

I don't like the notion that stress causes our BC, because to me it implies, that if I had handled the stress better, then maybe I wouldn't have gotten BC, let along to be Dx stage 3...to me it feels like blame the victim....but that said, stress can lower the bodies ability to fight!

I was living happily and with very little stress when diagnosed.  My stress level increased dramatically during treatment and after (fear of recurrence tends to stress me out).

Jenny, I personally was going through a very stressful time in my life at the time I was dx.

I was in a very bad place emotionally. I have questioned this theory myself. The day before I was dx, I was telling my husband I  just Could not handle the stress in our life anymore, I don;t know what to make of it all! The crazy thing now is,  I sure don't  sweat the small stuff anymore!

One silverlining in this journey, I think , is we learn to handle our stress better, we take better care of ourselves as a result right?

I think its a crazy crap shoot unfourtinetly! Life is still life, its just life after bc.

Hugs

Stephanie

I was under a very very stressful time,with ex daughter in law.She was a cancer to the family.So I am not totaly convinced stress had nothing to do with this.

Just at the time of diagnosis, it was stressful...but I've had MORE stressful times and I didn't get a dx of bc.  My bc likely started several years before my dx, so I attribute it's late dx to POOR RAD DX. I don't think the radiologist reading my mammograms for the previous three years really looked at them...just went through the motions.

I had/have a stressful life.  But, my grandmother lost three babies, almost lost a son to polio, my grandfather got polio and was out of work for a year (she did not work) and then he died when she was in her early fifties. She also had a nervous breakdown after losing her third child (she was RH-) and was in bed for nearly a year.  She also lived through the depression and grew up poor.  She is 93 and still going strong.  She had a lot more stress than I do and did not end up with Breast Cancer. In fact, no-one ever in the history of my family has ever had breast cancer and the women generally live to be well into their nineties. I am a family anomaly now.I have met women who are convinced stress played a part in their cancer.  Stress can depress the immune system and we need a good immune system to fight off cancer. So maybe it's not the actual stress but how we handle the stress. I wish they knew why this is happening to women and some men. 

I was going through a very stressful time.  My DH had lost his job, both sons were going through very bad experiences with depression, they both ended up in the hospital, my mother had Alzheimers and it was worsening.  I personally think this was not the only trigger for me, but I think it had a lot to do with it.  I am going to try to handle stress better from now on.  I think I'm going to take a meditation class.  I am actuallly less stressed over the breast cancer than I was over these other things, so maybe just the thought of handling stress better is already working for me.  Or maybe mothers just get stressed much more over their kids than themselves. 

Some "experts" say yes stress is a trigger, some say no.  I have found that they change their opinions on everything from day to day, I take it with a grain of salt and form my own opinion.  Personally, I went through much in my years before BC, but for me I think family history has a much larger role in whether we get cancer, but the "experts" only say 10% due to family history.  I think it's more like 20% and second degree relatives should figure into that too....