STRESS with Breast Cancer too! How much can we take?

If stress contributed to a recurrence, we would all have recurrences!

More seriously, stress likely does affect our health in so many ways, but is so hard to qualify in studies.  We are getting better at recognizing the science of stress through stress hormones that can be measured.  Some day we will be able to qualify our levels of stress and degree of disease as a consequence.

I had an extremely stressful job.  I was lucky to retire from it in Nov 2013.  that was my first opportunity.  Low and behold, BC popped up in March 2014.  Do I think the stress contributed...absolutely.  

I'm not aware of any studies regarding a link between bc and stress.  But I have a hard time accepting that it would be a major factor.  That's because I know many women who've had extreme amounts of stress in their lives and do not have bc.  Life itself is going to produce stress.  You will have difficulties.  There will be emotional pain and struggles. I have a sister two years older than me who smokes and struggles more financially.  She raised four children (I only have one child) and one of those kids was addicted to heroin and it was extremely hard on her. She also has a less supportive husband emotionally.  But she's not the one who got the diagnosis of bc.  

I mean, if you polled women in your life and asked if they're experiencing stress, which ones are going to say no?  We deal with marriage/divorce, child rearing, our own parents, financial issues, death of loved ones, work, relationships, ect., and it's not all going to go smoothly for any of us.  Yet some women will not be diagnosed with bc even tho they cope with a tremendous amount of stress.

having BC the treatments and emotional rebuilding afterwards is a stress! I had a lot of stress in the years before duagnosis  

Like the divine mrs.m, I have a bit of doubt regarding stress as a major causal factor in bc. The vast majority of us have stress by virtue of living. Families, finances, work, you name it, we all have stress. Sometimes it's worse than others, but no one goes through life unscathed. If stress were a major cause of bc, or any other cancer, we would see far more of it and far more recurrences. I can see learning not to stress over little things (traffic, lines in shops etc.) but beyond that, if something major occurs in your life, it would be hard not to become stressed. BTW, I was diagnosed during an extremely happy, stress free period in my life as was the period for several years before my dx. If we could pin it on major stress, then prevention might be futile since you can't prevent many stressful things in life from happening.

Caryn

Janett2014,

No problem asking me any question about my bc! My radiation was not to my breast, but to a 2cm met to my upper femur, however, rads after a bmx are not unheard of. I was on track for that until my bone met was found, so no rads to chest, no chemo but happy and NED almost 3 years later. Go figure!

Caryn

I do believe believe stress was a contributing factor in my BC Dx. I found my mom, who lived with us, when she died in her bed watching TV 4 months before my Dx.  My BS told me my BC had been growing for up to 8 years before it was seen on Mammogram. In 2005 my dad became very ill and passed in 2006 when total family dysfunction took place. In my opinion living by the largest landfill in Staten Island as a child and teen also contributed. My sister who currently stage IV on hospice care and I have had this discussion numerous times. Her initial stage II Dx. Was in 2006 as dad was dying. Her first chemo treatment was supposed to be the day we buried him. Each of her progressions occurred after extremely stressful events.

I have also thought that stress played a part in my dx. Leading up to my dx in 10/13 I had gone thru tremendous stress in the 4-5 years prior to that. I have no idea how long the cancer had been growing in my body though, I didn't even know that was something that could be known! I'd like to ask my MO about that.

I wonder if how one deals with the stress is more of a contribution to health issues rather than the stress itself. Everyone has stress, but if someone can manage or cope "better" may have a better chance of not having it cause health problems. Just a thought....

So my question is, why breast cancer?  Why would the stress result in cancer of the breast when there are so many other types of cancer? When you know someone diagnosed with kidney cancer, pancreatic cancer, ovarian cancer, leukemia, lung cancer, bladder cancer, thyroid cancer or any other type of cancer, do you say to yourself, "that person was probably under a lot of stress prior to their diagnosis."  Do people with other cancers say to themselves, 'I think this developed because of the major stresses I've had to deal with in the past few years.'? Or is this theory considered more by women who are diagnosed with breast cancer?  

So, if that's the case, what can we do to avoid that? Live like hermits?

I don't have it handy, but David Servan-Schriber's book, Anti-Cancer, A New Way Of Life, has an excellent chapter explaining the relationship between the type of "stress over which we have no control" (vs. the normal stress we all go through) and our health.

In my situation, I firmly believe that stress played a major role in my re-dx, although there probably were metastatic cells brewing before our house flooded while we were on vacation last summer, and we came home to a $100k mess that necessitated putting everything we own in storage while our home underwent a major renovation.  I can't even begin to articulate the stress of seeing our home totally torn apart by a team of incompetent idiots who didn't recognize the value of precious collectibles (I'm an antiques dealer), especially rare books and artwork, and did as much or more damage than the water had.... then dealing with an insurance company that dragged things out for months while we lived in two hotels and then a rental home ... contractor issues and delays... and still dealing today with unpacking and storage issues.  I know it's just "stuff," and not a life -- but it was several months of being totally overwhelmed, frustrated, and out of control, and I absolutely question if I would have had a recurrence, the same way I question if I would have had my initial dx if I hadn't been on HRT for many years, although I also believe, in my case, genetics are a huge factor and can't be minimized as perhaps the primary reason HRT and a severe stress episode have so affected me.      

My BS at UCLA once told me that bc isn't caused by one thing, but is the result of an accumulation of things.  I tend to believe that, although what that combination of things is (like genetics or stress or hormones or chemical exposure) is probably different for each of us. 

Just the way I see it ...     Deanna

Came across this link today on FB.  I haven't made time to watch the video yet (it's about an hour long), but thought I would share it here for anyone still pondering the relationship between stress and health:  http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archiv...               Deanna