|
Hindsight is 20/20? (+ going to get better) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Actually from a week and a half (or more?) ago, revised slightly and with an additional note appended later:
There’s so much that I’ve learned over the past year or so, that I wish I could have learned years ago. There are so many things I wish I had understood back when... even before I was a teenager. If I had, then I wouldn’t have spent so many years being chronically stressed and sleep-deprived.
If I hadn’t spent so many years being stressed and sleep-deprived, then my health would certainly be in a much better condition. Although stress is not usually medically listed as a cause or contributing factor for the health problems I’ve been having particular difficulty with lately (see additional note at the end of this entry if you want details), I believe that the health problems I have were almost certainly made considerably worse over time by physical and mental stress. I also think that if I hadn’t been so preoccupied with other things I would have more likely paid attention to warning signs years before they turned into the kinds of problems able to cause me significant amounts of discomfort and inconvenience.
Also, if I hadn’t spent all that time being stressed and sleep-deprived, then I would have done better with school and with managing my finances, and so then I would have been able to get preventative healthcare, and not have been so concerned now about how much medical treatment I can actually afford (and would have gone in to see a doctor months sooner (went last tuesday)).
But then again, if all of those things had gone differently, then I likely wouldn’t have been in the same place at the same time… and so I wouldn’t have met all the wonderful people I’ve met, and maybe wouldn’t have learned quite as much in the long run because I think it’s at least partly because of the intelligent, caring friends I have now that I was able to learn everything I’ve learned in the past year.
But because I was dealing with certain things pretty much back-to-back-to-back (sleep deprivation followed by mental issues followed by health concerns)… no one who knows me now (except some family) has really ever seen me not be either tired or stressed/worried or in some degree of pain most of the time. Not consistently, anyway.
And I’m concerned that some of those people may have felt somewhat pushed away or ignored while I was struggling so much with trying to sort out my head and everything I had to deal with in order to learn the things that this journal has been all about, for the most part. I think it’s taken a lot of patience for the ones who have had to deal with most of it, for them to even still talk to me.
But I will be forever grateful to all of them. For just being who they are and for caring.
And because of them, and because of everything I learned, I wouldn’t trade the past two years for anything.
……...additional note:
For the record, the symptoms I’ve been ignoring for years (which I totally thought had to do with a variety of allergies, due to the respiratory symptoms I had) turned out to be typical of gastroesophageal reflux disease or GERD (aka acid reflux)… which is more common in middle-aged and older people (odds of developing it increase significantly with age), but is not entirely unheard of in children, teens, and 20-somethings (that’s me)
Although some research suggests that stress and anxiety can cause stomach problems which might in turn eventually lead to chronic conditions, there appears to be far more evidence that what stress and anxiety actually does (with regards to this medical condition) is indirectly promote poor lifestyle habits that themselves are risk factors that have been directly linked with development of GERD. (such as alcohol, smoking, poor eating habits, bad posture, etc.)
More typical causes of GERD have to deal with the actual physical connection between the stomach and esophagus, when there is an abnormality or dysfunction affecting the stomach’s ability to stay closed.
Moreover, controlled studies have shown that GERD patients, when stressed, did not have actual increases in acid reflux… but had an increased perception of symptoms, ie increased sensitivity to a non-increased amount of acid, feeling more pain and/or discomfort when they were stressed.
Some people have described how GERD, for them, is linked to anxiety. From what I’ve read, what is normal in these cases is that they experienced chronic stress for years, and then rapidly began experiencing serious GERD symptoms, which quickly improved with treatment of their anxiety and worsened when they were more stressed. My situation does not match that kind of profile. My symptoms began at a somewhat early age, before I had developed real problems with chronic stress, and progressed in an extremely slow and steady manner. Even when I myself was convinced that what I was experiencing was a side-effect of stress, the problems did not get better at all when I began eliminating stress, instead continuing on as usual, even at times when I was otherwise feeling so much incredibly better… and then realizing that my health problems weren’t going away (and that I might not be able to afford to get help for them) brought on new stress and in some ways put me right back where I’d been trying to get out of, but for somewhat different reasons this time.
So, I don’t think this problem was (in my case) caused by stress, but I do think the reason it’s gotten as bad as it has now rather than later in life is because of the stress and poor sleep habits I had for so long.
Though I think even without the stress, the problem would still have slowly gotten worse (eventually getting to the point where I’m at, likely at a much later age) without undergoing treatment or applying changes in dietary habits as preventative measures.
But the good news is that I now have medication for it and it’s likely that what damage there is can be healed… and then after that if I’m taking care of myself and being healthy, the problems can be prevented from reoccurring, hopefully without needing to stay on medication.
Yay. (waves tiny flag in gesture of rejoice-ment)
((end note: This isn’t an essay for a class, so I’m not documenting my research… but if you’re interested in the topic, hey, it’s not hard to find the same info that I found. Do an internet search for “GERD causes” and “GERD stress” to find links to alllllll sorts of pages on medical sites and chat forums… if you find something amazingly interesting, reply back here and we’ll chat.))
delbosque · Mon Jun 22, 2009 @ 08:01pm · 1 Comments |
|
|
|
|
|