and for those who are not - who can say that the reason of his/her neuropathy is basically due to stress in life at the time of onset?

Is this sort of a poll??

All people have stress factors in their life one way or the other. There is always a stress factor present, especially if you have an undiagnosed disease which is not recognised as such yet.

Stress would then be that you keep doing as usual, but your body protests the stress of having to perform in spite of the underlying disease. I do not know, but I feel that patients too easily can get a brush off with stress from doctors. "It is just stress, go home and relax!"

I had my disease for years before being diagnosed, so yes, I had stress because I kept pushing my body to do the usual, and of course it did not like it!

So somehow the doctors were actually right. My body was stressed, but stress was not the cause of the illness, it was the symptom that something was wrong in my body. I now know that my disease is hereditary and hard to diagnose.

I hope that I did make some sense of the above for you, I have been thinking a lot about stress and stress factors and the way some doctors use stress as an excuse for not being able to find the underlying disease. This has caused me much anger - another stress factor for the body

It is a sort of poll. I'm trying to learn about my case - from all of you...

The meaning was - extreme stress before onset which might couse the onset of the illness eighter it is genetic or idiopatic or even from autoimune condition - and not stress during the long long way of diagnosis.

What is the genetic basis of your case? how long it took you to get the DX?

Just like GanaQ said, it's hard to separate the stress from the situation. I too, had gone years with a disease that was not diagnosed, which stresses the body to a great degree. I think all of us with neuropathies, also had stress at diagnosis time. Especially idiopathic neuropathy. I knew I had neuropathy, I had been vitamin and mineral deficient for years, and I knew that had caused the neuropathy. My first neuro did not believe me, and never really addressed the neuropathy, he was always trying to make something else the reason. Thankfully, I now have a wonderful neuro who does understand the connection between gluten intolerance and neuropathy.

In my thinking - stress wrecks havoc on us.

In 1998 - I think I worked myself to death. I work from a home office. I had been working like 30 hour sessions - going up to bed for one or two hours and right back too work. That had gone on for months. On July 20, 1998 I died. Lucky for me I happened to be out that day and was found - revived (shocked by EM) and woke up thirteen days later. No one knows how long I was dead.

My wife (now no wife) overheard two Drs talking “if he ever does wake up he will be a vegetable”. Her “official version” was he will have brain damage - we just don’t know how much.

I had and still don’t have any heart damage or problems.

STRESS killed me ...... my body said “heck with you” and checked out.

That “might” have been the start of my nerve damage.

My PN (which is extremely bad today and yesterday) came on all of a sudden in April ‘04.

My long time wife took off mid ‘03 and the sadness was overwhelming. Added to that - my business was already seeing the crash that is in full swing now. My business (35 years self employed same business) is tied to manufacturing in the USA ....... that started going away several years ago.

Stress wrecks havoc on us.

“Is it worth dying for” - is the main message in several books regarding stress.

I am not talking about normal everyday living stress - I am talking about severe stress.

Stress will kill you.

I agree with you. As we know stress can cause to high blood pressure, heart attack. Does it can cause to a damage in our nerves system?

What a good question, dude! I hate it when docs default to stress as a Dx! Most of the time, I think its the lack of doctor training or forward-thinking that leads them to this. Mayo Clinic said the same thing about my SFN symptoms, saying that I had no neuropathy and that my brain was subconciously doing it. What BS, I finally got a real Dx when I went to the Neuro docs in AZ at Barrows Neurological Institute.

Jay