eric and mike - puzzled
121 - 139 of 139 Posts
LOL, Tom!
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You're not the only one! But I do understand Mike's last statements(well, maybe a little more than that)..."...most of the whole is still missing!But the pieces parts are very useful and there are islands of knowledge in the stream. They do need to be bridged, though."We do seem to have a lot yet to learn, but I'm encouraged with what we have learned.
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Sherree
LOL, Tom!
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You're not the only one! But I do understand Mike's last statements(well, maybe a little more than that)..."...most of the whole is still missing!But the pieces parts are very useful and there are islands of knowledge in the stream. They do need to be bridged, though."We do seem to have a lot yet to learn, but I'm encouraged with what we have learned.
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Sherree
Mike,
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Regarding stress, I think it's the current trend. Medical practice has trend cycles almost like fashion, have you noticed? Remember when it seemed every second child was being diagnosed with ADD? The healthy food chart has been completely changed at least 3 times in my mother's lifetime. It's so much easier and more acceptable to blame "stress" for everything than to ask busy patients to spend the time and effort to do an elimination diet. Wait and see what the easy answer to everything is 10 years from now...
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But I do alright with Smoke Daddy BBQ once in a while if I remember to take a bentyl. When you and Dr. B. come here maybe we could all go.
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Eric,
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I just love how you're so supportive!
I think this is more because of human nature than trying to do bad science. It's hard to think logically all the time, and I know I don't always think or articulate as well as I'd like. I think people lean toward the postulate that fits with their experience and biases, and somehow in their brain it morphs into fact. I've noticed this in everyday life also, but then it usually doesn't affect anyone's health. Example - Carol asks me "where's Edith?" and I say, "I think she went to lunch", then Carol tells Annie "Edith went to lunch". But I didn't know Edith went to lunch. It was a postulate.Medical practitioners should work harder at guarding against this effect.
Other way for me! I had to give up pizza - mozzarella and onion
I was making this simpler for the non-techies. Personally I think it is splitting hairs, as both allergy and intolerance are inappropriate immune reactions to benign substances. But that's my personal opinion. As I said, the important thing for a patient to understand is that either allergy or intolerance is an immune system reaction.
Believe me, in my experience and many others who have posted here and to the soy allergy support site, most doctors DO NOT CONSIDER the possibility of food allergies, and often dismiss obvious symptoms. Even on the soy site food intolerance was never mentioned. I first learned about it here. There are people there who report digestive symptoms from soy, but they think it's an allergy. I posted info about Dr. B.'s book there, maybe it will help.
Look at this board! As I write there are 2 threads on the first page discussing allergy symptoms concurrent with IBS symptoms. Many people here report allergy and other symptoms concurrent with their IBS symptoms. Also, look at the literature and Dr. B's book for examples of all kinds of symptoms clearing up on an elimination diet. It happens all the time. It happened to me.
I wish you would be more willing to do this instead of fighting everything that's said about food intolerance.
There's no IF about this. As I've mentioned on other threads, after I identified my food intolerances 95% of my symptoms went away.
I identified my soy allergy 10 years ago, and it is not an IBS trigger. It causes only a mild tummyache with nasty congestion and fatigue. I do/did have mild underlying IBS, and I've identified the stress events that cause symptoms - usually dealing with my family or a pattern similar to ones in my childhood. This IBS accounted for about 5% of my symptoms, which I'm managing with stress reduction techniques and bentyl. 95% of my problems were from food intolerance. BTW, it's JuliA.
I already have a good doctor-patient relationship. I send her the information from this site and she uses it to help her other patients.Thanks for recommending books on IBS, but at this point since it's only a small part of my problem I'm more interested in learning more about food intolerance and educating others. The health of our nation is at stake here, I'm not joking, I seriously feel this way. I tend to be "evangelical" when I'm passionate about something.
Mike,
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Regarding stress, I think it's the current trend. Medical practice has trend cycles almost like fashion, have you noticed? Remember when it seemed every second child was being diagnosed with ADD? The healthy food chart has been completely changed at least 3 times in my mother's lifetime. It's so much easier and more acceptable to blame "stress" for everything than to ask busy patients to spend the time and effort to do an elimination diet. Wait and see what the easy answer to everything is 10 years from now...
![]()
But I do alright with Smoke Daddy BBQ once in a while if I remember to take a bentyl. When you and Dr. B. come here maybe we could all go.
![]()
Eric,
![]()
I just love how you're so supportive!
I think this is more because of human nature than trying to do bad science. It's hard to think logically all the time, and I know I don't always think or articulate as well as I'd like. I think people lean toward the postulate that fits with their experience and biases, and somehow in their brain it morphs into fact. I've noticed this in everyday life also, but then it usually doesn't affect anyone's health. Example - Carol asks me "where's Edith?" and I say, "I think she went to lunch", then Carol tells Annie "Edith went to lunch". But I didn't know Edith went to lunch. It was a postulate.Medical practitioners should work harder at guarding against this effect.
Other way for me! I had to give up pizza - mozzarella and onion
I was making this simpler for the non-techies. Personally I think it is splitting hairs, as both allergy and intolerance are inappropriate immune reactions to benign substances. But that's my personal opinion. As I said, the important thing for a patient to understand is that either allergy or intolerance is an immune system reaction.
Believe me, in my experience and many others who have posted here and to the soy allergy support site, most doctors DO NOT CONSIDER the possibility of food allergies, and often dismiss obvious symptoms. Even on the soy site food intolerance was never mentioned. I first learned about it here. There are people there who report digestive symptoms from soy, but they think it's an allergy. I posted info about Dr. B.'s book there, maybe it will help.
Look at this board! As I write there are 2 threads on the first page discussing allergy symptoms concurrent with IBS symptoms. Many people here report allergy and other symptoms concurrent with their IBS symptoms. Also, look at the literature and Dr. B's book for examples of all kinds of symptoms clearing up on an elimination diet. It happens all the time. It happened to me.
I wish you would be more willing to do this instead of fighting everything that's said about food intolerance.
There's no IF about this. As I've mentioned on other threads, after I identified my food intolerances 95% of my symptoms went away.
I identified my soy allergy 10 years ago, and it is not an IBS trigger. It causes only a mild tummyache with nasty congestion and fatigue. I do/did have mild underlying IBS, and I've identified the stress events that cause symptoms - usually dealing with my family or a pattern similar to ones in my childhood. This IBS accounted for about 5% of my symptoms, which I'm managing with stress reduction techniques and bentyl. 95% of my problems were from food intolerance. BTW, it's JuliA.
I already have a good doctor-patient relationship. I send her the information from this site and she uses it to help her other patients.Thanks for recommending books on IBS, but at this point since it's only a small part of my problem I'm more interested in learning more about food intolerance and educating others. The health of our nation is at stake here, I'm not joking, I seriously feel this way. I tend to be "evangelical" when I'm passionate about something.
Julia it is a book on immunology, specifically how the brain and the immune system work together.Esther M. Sternberg, M.D. Esther M. Sternberg, M.D., is Director of Integrative Neural Immune Program and Chief of the Section on Neuroendocrine Immunology and Behavior at the National Institute of Mental Health and National Institutes of Health. She was trained in rheumatology at McGill University and practiced medicine in Montreal before returning to a research career and teaching at Washington University in St. Louis. The winner of the Public Health Service Superior Service Award and President of the International Society for Neuroimmunomodulation, Dr. Sternberg has written over one hundred scientific papers, reviews, and book chapters on the subject of brain-immune connections, including articles in Scientific American and Nature Medicine. She has also co-directed an exhibition on Emotions and Disease at the National Library of Medicine and lectures nationally and internationally on emotions, health, and disease. THE BALANCE WITHIN The Science Connecting Health & Emotions Esther M. Sternberg, M.D. ��a tour de force, a romp through centuries of scientific discovery written by an expert in the field who brings us to that point where mind speaks to body.� -- Abraham Verghese, author of The Tennis Partner For years, believers in common wisdom and New Age gurus have claimed that a healthy spirit will result in a healthy body. But without scientific proof, doctors have not been able to explain or support that belief. As recently as ten years ago, the immune system was believed to be autonomous, with no connection to the brain. Esther Sternberg, M.D., and other researchers are now making advances that show the actual pathways connecting the areas of our brain that control immunity with those that generate feelings and thoughts. In THE BALANCE WITHIN: The Science Connecting Health and Emotions (W.H. Freeman and Company/May 8, 2000/$24.95 Hardcover) Dr. Sternberg explains the mechanisms and their significance: how nerves, molecules, and hormones connect the brain and immune system, how the immune system signals the brain and affects our emotions, and documents how our brain can signal the immune system, making us more vulnerable to illnesses. They have not only discovered the links, but have demonstrated how they work and what the implications can be for treatable and chronic diseases. What you've known intuitively (that being exhausted or stressed can make you more vulnerable to illness) is now understood scientifically. Sternberg sets the stage for the recent findings by highlighting earlier medical research. Hippocrates and his contemporaries believed there was a connection between our physical and emotional health. By the 15th and 16th centuries, however, medicine became increasingly specialized as researchers began to map the body and focus on specific parts and their functions. Since then, we have learned an enormous amount about illnesses and infections and their impact on specific organs. Only recently have researchers such as Sternberg begun to incorporate this knowledge into a broader understanding of our body. Researchers and laymen alike have praised Sternberg for her clear, lyrical writing. Her descriptions of feeling sick are evocative of woozy days you thought would never end. She is forthright about the conflicts among scientists and argues that it was important that medicine specialized when it did, and that it is just as important that researchers pool their knowledge now. Ultimately, she answers our pressing, relevant questions: Will stress make us sick? Will believing make us well? Why do we feel sick when we get sick? How does our health affect our moods? Until now there has been a lot of speculation about these questions, especially from the New Age shamans, but no serious, informed answers. THE BALANCE WITHIN provides these answers and explains clearly and engagingly how it happens. More Praise for The Balance Within "This refreshing personal saga of research on brain-body interactions knits together historic vignettes with recent experimental approaches. The book is a welcome addition at a time when considerable puzzlement and confusion exits regarding alternative or complementary medicine. We learn to respect the powerful influences exerted by the brain on body function." -- Joseph Martin, M.D., Dean of Harvard University Medical School "Few science books are a beautiful read but The Balance Within achieves exactly that. Esther Sternberg not only illuminates the connections between emotion and health with fascinating precision, but she manages to evoke the emotions themselves, from sunlight happiness to sheltering serenity." -- Deborah Blum, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Sex on the Brain, Professor of Journalism, University of Wisconsin-Madison "Dr. Sternberg's book is a dazzling tour of a most promising area of neuroscience--the interface between the immune system and the nervous system. This area of research, in which Esther Sternberg has been one of the world's leading scientists for at least a decade, is leading to new understandings and treatments of the stress-related diseases of modern life, including chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia." -- Elliot S. Gershon, M.D., Professor of Psychiatry, The University of Chicago "The Balance Within delivers the latest scientific advances in prose that is clear and arrestingly beautiful. Sternberg has a gift for the illustrating detail, the clarifying allusion, the telling metaphor. With The Balance Within, Esther Sternberg joins Stephen J. Gould, Richard Dawkins, and Edward Wilson in the current pantheon of great biology writers." -- Francisco J. Ayala, Donald Bren Professor of Biological Sciences, University of California �The Balance Within is a tour de force of the past, present, and future of our knowledge of mind/body interactions arid stress. Dr. Sternberg, a leading expert on the interaction of the endocrine and immune systems writes beguilingly. A knowledgeable and entertaining tour guide, she makes complex issues clear. Dr. Sternberg takes us from the origins of medicine in Greece, to early medical schools in Padua, to modern research in Montreal and the U.S. She lucidly describes how we came to appreciate the physiology of stress, how the mind influences the body, and how the body affects the mind. More than food for thought, this book is nourishment for those curious about mind and body.� -- David Spiegel, M.D., Professor and Associate Chair of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University School of Medicine "The author has undertaken the daunting task of bridging a chasm between what we know as the scientific basis behind disease and what we don't know about how our brains can influence this science to make our physical and mental health either better or worse. She takes us on a fascinating trip, describing difficult scientific concepts in easily understood terms and liberally uses colorful analogies to bring the science into a reality we can all appreciate. However, the journey is not yet at an end, in that knowledge is continuously being added, filling in gaps presently occupied by guesses. One can only hope that Dr. Sternberg will continue to write, acting as our tour guide to interpret the science and connect it with our daily lives in such a way that we can learn to seek and find help within our being!' -- Frances K. Conley, author of Waiting Out on the Boys "Many of the most pressing contemporary health problems are related to the everyday stressors of contemporary society. In this groundbreaking work, Dr. Esther Sternberg charts the mechanisms by which stress affects health and well-being as well as the means for minimizing its deleterious effects." -- John T. Cacioppo, Ph.D., Tiffany and Margaret Blake Distinguished Service Professor, The University of Chicago http://www.esthersternberg.com/balanceWithin.htm Stress is no trend it is a very important part of the human organsim and has many effects on the body. It is a hug player in IBS, but stress isn't really a good word for this as IBS goes right down to emotions themselves.Chronic Diarrhea http://www.aboutibs.org/Publications/chronicdiarrhea.html
Julia it is a book on immunology, specifically how the brain and the immune system work together.Esther M. Sternberg, M.D. Esther M. Sternberg, M.D., is Director of Integrative Neural Immune Program and Chief of the Section on Neuroendocrine Immunology and Behavior at the National Institute of Mental Health and National Institutes of Health. She was trained in rheumatology at McGill University and practiced medicine in Montreal before returning to a research career and teaching at Washington University in St. Louis. The winner of the Public Health Service Superior Service Award and President of the International Society for Neuroimmunomodulation, Dr. Sternberg has written over one hundred scientific papers, reviews, and book chapters on the subject of brain-immune connections, including articles in Scientific American and Nature Medicine. She has also co-directed an exhibition on Emotions and Disease at the National Library of Medicine and lectures nationally and internationally on emotions, health, and disease. THE BALANCE WITHIN The Science Connecting Health & Emotions Esther M. Sternberg, M.D. ��a tour de force, a romp through centuries of scientific discovery written by an expert in the field who brings us to that point where mind speaks to body.� -- Abraham Verghese, author of The Tennis Partner For years, believers in common wisdom and New Age gurus have claimed that a healthy spirit will result in a healthy body. But without scientific proof, doctors have not been able to explain or support that belief. As recently as ten years ago, the immune system was believed to be autonomous, with no connection to the brain. Esther Sternberg, M.D., and other researchers are now making advances that show the actual pathways connecting the areas of our brain that control immunity with those that generate feelings and thoughts. In THE BALANCE WITHIN: The Science Connecting Health and Emotions (W.H. Freeman and Company/May 8, 2000/$24.95 Hardcover) Dr. Sternberg explains the mechanisms and their significance: how nerves, molecules, and hormones connect the brain and immune system, how the immune system signals the brain and affects our emotions, and documents how our brain can signal the immune system, making us more vulnerable to illnesses. They have not only discovered the links, but have demonstrated how they work and what the implications can be for treatable and chronic diseases. What you've known intuitively (that being exhausted or stressed can make you more vulnerable to illness) is now understood scientifically. Sternberg sets the stage for the recent findings by highlighting earlier medical research. Hippocrates and his contemporaries believed there was a connection between our physical and emotional health. By the 15th and 16th centuries, however, medicine became increasingly specialized as researchers began to map the body and focus on specific parts and their functions. Since then, we have learned an enormous amount about illnesses and infections and their impact on specific organs. Only recently have researchers such as Sternberg begun to incorporate this knowledge into a broader understanding of our body. Researchers and laymen alike have praised Sternberg for her clear, lyrical writing. Her descriptions of feeling sick are evocative of woozy days you thought would never end. She is forthright about the conflicts among scientists and argues that it was important that medicine specialized when it did, and that it is just as important that researchers pool their knowledge now. Ultimately, she answers our pressing, relevant questions: Will stress make us sick? Will believing make us well? Why do we feel sick when we get sick? How does our health affect our moods? Until now there has been a lot of speculation about these questions, especially from the New Age shamans, but no serious, informed answers. THE BALANCE WITHIN provides these answers and explains clearly and engagingly how it happens. More Praise for The Balance Within "This refreshing personal saga of research on brain-body interactions knits together historic vignettes with recent experimental approaches. The book is a welcome addition at a time when considerable puzzlement and confusion exits regarding alternative or complementary medicine. We learn to respect the powerful influences exerted by the brain on body function." -- Joseph Martin, M.D., Dean of Harvard University Medical School "Few science books are a beautiful read but The Balance Within achieves exactly that. Esther Sternberg not only illuminates the connections between emotion and health with fascinating precision, but she manages to evoke the emotions themselves, from sunlight happiness to sheltering serenity." -- Deborah Blum, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Sex on the Brain, Professor of Journalism, University of Wisconsin-Madison "Dr. Sternberg's book is a dazzling tour of a most promising area of neuroscience--the interface between the immune system and the nervous system. This area of research, in which Esther Sternberg has been one of the world's leading scientists for at least a decade, is leading to new understandings and treatments of the stress-related diseases of modern life, including chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia." -- Elliot S. Gershon, M.D., Professor of Psychiatry, The University of Chicago "The Balance Within delivers the latest scientific advances in prose that is clear and arrestingly beautiful. Sternberg has a gift for the illustrating detail, the clarifying allusion, the telling metaphor. With The Balance Within, Esther Sternberg joins Stephen J. Gould, Richard Dawkins, and Edward Wilson in the current pantheon of great biology writers." -- Francisco J. Ayala, Donald Bren Professor of Biological Sciences, University of California �The Balance Within is a tour de force of the past, present, and future of our knowledge of mind/body interactions arid stress. Dr. Sternberg, a leading expert on the interaction of the endocrine and immune systems writes beguilingly. A knowledgeable and entertaining tour guide, she makes complex issues clear. Dr. Sternberg takes us from the origins of medicine in Greece, to early medical schools in Padua, to modern research in Montreal and the U.S. She lucidly describes how we came to appreciate the physiology of stress, how the mind influences the body, and how the body affects the mind. More than food for thought, this book is nourishment for those curious about mind and body.� -- David Spiegel, M.D., Professor and Associate Chair of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University School of Medicine "The author has undertaken the daunting task of bridging a chasm between what we know as the scientific basis behind disease and what we don't know about how our brains can influence this science to make our physical and mental health either better or worse. She takes us on a fascinating trip, describing difficult scientific concepts in easily understood terms and liberally uses colorful analogies to bring the science into a reality we can all appreciate. However, the journey is not yet at an end, in that knowledge is continuously being added, filling in gaps presently occupied by guesses. One can only hope that Dr. Sternberg will continue to write, acting as our tour guide to interpret the science and connect it with our daily lives in such a way that we can learn to seek and find help within our being!' -- Frances K. Conley, author of Waiting Out on the Boys "Many of the most pressing contemporary health problems are related to the everyday stressors of contemporary society. In this groundbreaking work, Dr. Esther Sternberg charts the mechanisms by which stress affects health and well-being as well as the means for minimizing its deleterious effects." -- John T. Cacioppo, Ph.D., Tiffany and Margaret Blake Distinguished Service Professor, The University of Chicago http://www.esthersternberg.com/balanceWithin.htm Stress is no trend it is a very important part of the human organsim and has many effects on the body. It is a hug player in IBS, but stress isn't really a good word for this as IBS goes right down to emotions themselves.Chronic Diarrhea http://www.aboutibs.org/Publications/chronicdiarrhea.html
right, it's all connected despite what 'real' scientists say: "Sternberg sets the stage for the recent findings by highlighting earlier medical research. Hippocrates and his contemporaries believed there was a connection between our physical and emotional health. By the 15th and 16th centuries, however, medicine became increasingly specialized as researchers began to map the body and focus on specific parts and their functions. Since then, we have learned an enormous amount about illnesses and infections and their impact on specific organs. Only recently have researchers such as Sternberg begun to incorporate this knowledge into a broader understanding of our body."but how does it help me as someone with IBS to know that?tom
right, it's all connected despite what 'real' scientists say: "Sternberg sets the stage for the recent findings by highlighting earlier medical research. Hippocrates and his contemporaries believed there was a connection between our physical and emotional health. By the 15th and 16th centuries, however, medicine became increasingly specialized as researchers began to map the body and focus on specific parts and their functions. Since then, we have learned an enormous amount about illnesses and infections and their impact on specific organs. Only recently have researchers such as Sternberg begun to incorporate this knowledge into a broader understanding of our body."but how does it help me as someone with IBS to know that?tom
Tom, the answer is "broader understanding of our bodies."
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Which is a point partly of this thread, to learn all the mecanisms and very important ones such as how serotonin effects digestion and our bodies.I know serotonin is not the only issue in IBS, but it is an EXTREMELY IMPORTANT ONE with a lot of implications to the condition.
Tom, the answer is "broader understanding of our bodies."
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Which is a point partly of this thread, to learn all the mecanisms and very important ones such as how serotonin effects digestion and our bodies.I know serotonin is not the only issue in IBS, but it is an EXTREMELY IMPORTANT ONE with a lot of implications to the condition.
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BEFORE DEPARTING FRIGID SAINT LOOIE: ________________________________________"I am not sure you can accurately say most doctors don't know about food allergies or intolerences,..." _________________________________________
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If you don't trust me on anything else ever, that's one you can take to the bank.Most doctors (most means majority) have a basic undersatnding or conceptualization of allergy and know next to nothing about non-allergic reactivity to foods, additives, chemicals, etc. Many do not even know that such a thing exists, rather view it as some strange rumors that get shared around darkened campsites in the wild, late at night, when the ghost stories run out, or which were passed down from Gyspy King to Gypsy King and their Old Wives.So yes, anyone can say what was said with absolute accuracy. MOST is not ALL, but it Is most. When you are in a certain industry or business or healthcare service you become more aware than those outside looking in occassionally.[Holy cow...look at that car....does this happen in St. Louis to everyone who parks under a tree? It looks like the entire Pigeon Nation took up residence on it while I was inside the hotel!!! OMIGOD I am gonna need a bulldozer to get that ---- off......]
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jeez, always seems to be a pile of it in one form or another to scrape away no matter where ya go!!! Time to go....Have a DFD all.MNL
Joined
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6,709 Posts
BEFORE DEPARTING FRIGID SAINT LOOIE: ________________________________________"I am not sure you can accurately say most doctors don't know about food allergies or intolerences,..." _________________________________________
![]()
If you don't trust me on anything else ever, that's one you can take to the bank.Most doctors (most means majority) have a basic undersatnding or conceptualization of allergy and know next to nothing about non-allergic reactivity to foods, additives, chemicals, etc. Many do not even know that such a thing exists, rather view it as some strange rumors that get shared around darkened campsites in the wild, late at night, when the ghost stories run out, or which were passed down from Gyspy King to Gypsy King and their Old Wives.So yes, anyone can say what was said with absolute accuracy. MOST is not ALL, but it Is most. When you are in a certain industry or business or healthcare service you become more aware than those outside looking in occassionally.[Holy cow...look at that car....does this happen in St. Louis to everyone who parks under a tree? It looks like the entire Pigeon Nation took up residence on it while I was inside the hotel!!! OMIGOD I am gonna need a bulldozer to get that ---- off......]
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jeez, always seems to be a pile of it in one form or another to scrape away no matter where ya go!!! Time to go....Have a DFD all.MNL
Joined
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6,709 Posts
OH PS TO JULIA:
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HAD ME A GREAT BIG PLATE OF PULLED PORK BARBEQUE FOR DINNER LAST NIGHT WITH A PILE OF BARBEQUE FRIES & 3-4 BOTTLES OF "HEINIE" TO WASH EM DOWN!FEEL LIKE A MILLION BUCKS TODAY!!!I WILL BE BACK HERE AGAIN. GOOD STUFF.On da road agin jes can't wait to get on da road aginMNoWillieN
Joined
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6,709 Posts
OH PS TO JULIA:
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HAD ME A GREAT BIG PLATE OF PULLED PORK BARBEQUE FOR DINNER LAST NIGHT WITH A PILE OF BARBEQUE FRIES & 3-4 BOTTLES OF "HEINIE" TO WASH EM DOWN!FEEL LIKE A MILLION BUCKS TODAY!!!I WILL BE BACK HERE AGAIN. GOOD STUFF.On da road agin jes can't wait to get on da road aginMNoWillieN
Mike, congratulations on your pork dinner!
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Eric, Dr. Sternberg's book does sound interesting, and I'll check it out. But this raises the question, does she account for food/chemical/additive intolerances in her work? Has she even heard of it? Or does she *assume* the immune reactions she's studied are caused by the brain-gut nerve loop?I still think stress is used way too often by both doctors and patients as a cop-out. I had doctors who blamed my symptoms on stress, when they in fact had a physical cause: food intolerance! Yes, stress can make symptoms worse, but it's also the crutch used to avoid a thorough investigation of the symptoms. So much easier to say, "here, take this pill..." I don't believe stress alone can be debilitating except in extreme cases like military combat.
Mike, congratulations on your pork dinner!
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Eric, Dr. Sternberg's book does sound interesting, and I'll check it out. But this raises the question, does she account for food/chemical/additive intolerances in her work? Has she even heard of it? Or does she *assume* the immune reactions she's studied are caused by the brain-gut nerve loop?I still think stress is used way too often by both doctors and patients as a cop-out. I had doctors who blamed my symptoms on stress, when they in fact had a physical cause: food intolerance! Yes, stress can make symptoms worse, but it's also the crutch used to avoid a thorough investigation of the symptoms. So much easier to say, "here, take this pill..." I don't believe stress alone can be debilitating except in extreme cases like military combat.
Julia, I'm pretty sure Sternberg is aware that foreign substances can cause reactions. the whole point of her book would seem to be a 'balanced' reaction to invasion from the environment whether the 'invasion' is from physical or mental stress.tom
Julia, I'm pretty sure Sternberg is aware that foreign substances can cause reactions. the whole point of her book would seem to be a 'balanced' reaction to invasion from the environment whether the 'invasion' is from physical or mental stress.tom
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