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

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

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?

I believe for those of us who have genetic PN, it lies dormant in our systems until it is activated by a stressful event, or string of events, and it is finally activated.... like people with cancer. It is in your genetic dna, it just lies dormant until something activates it.

For myself, it was 18 months of catastrophic events... Dad with cancer, Mom committed suicide, 16 year old daughter had a baby, husband had an affair, and 18 year old daughter moved in with her gang member boyfriend and started using Meth, oh, add to that I got a divorce, got laid off, and lost my home! So, yes, I was under a LOT of stress! If I was an alcoholic, I guess I would have gone on a binge. Instead, I had to stay strong to take care of my daughter and new granddaughter. I had to get a job and provide for them. So, there was more added stress. Add to that experimenting with medications and making it a challenge to do your job.

Perhaps you have PN and don't notice it, because you ARE so stressed??

It is known that when you are subjected to severe stress, depending on what you think is severe stress, you are more likely to get sick. Some people do fine with what I feel it mortal stress.

I think what happens is the idiopathic part, eventually, gives way to some 'reason', be it diabetes, autoimmune or heredity. It has taken them forever to find mine is autoimmune. Diagnosis is a long process.

My PN is the result of high blood sugars from Type 2 Diabetes, the PN began before I knew I was diabetic, it wasnt until I through my back out and ended up in the ER that the doc asked if I knew I was diabetic...

I am sure stress was a contributing factor to my Diabetes if for no other reason than when stressed I would turn to food and be less dilligent about excercise.

I can say that stress increases my PN pain alot. Over the summer I developed Gastroparesis and could not stop throwing up, when it was acute and I had to be rushed to the ER, it was like I could feel the burning numbness spread all the way up to mid thigh and could not stand on my feet.
This of course made me more stressed and made me throw up more and made the PN hurt more. Lol a viscous circle. Kind of a chicken/egg in that instance for me at least.