4 ms·

After a really really bad (prolonged) work situation, I started getting wicked acid reflux—with a very clear trigger between stress and subsequent symptoms. I r

After a really really bad (prolonged) work situation, I started getting wicked acid reflux—with a very clear trigger between stress and subsequent symptoms. I remember at one point opening a passive-aggressive email from my boss and instantly feeling like a battery had exploded in my mouth. The reflux never went away, even after my work situation improved, and some other gastrointestinal symptoms worsened until I recently got diagnosed with Crohn's disease. Which I am genetically predisposed towards, but I still like to say that my shitty boss gave me Crohn's (and not entirely in jest). Although drugs have helped both issues immensely, I will say there's a pretty substantial link between my symptoms and bouts of stress. A lot of people with IBD (and to some extent, IBS) are all too aware of the paradox that if you spend too much time worrying about the possibility of a flare-up, you're all but guaranteed to have a flare-up. The tummy is a fickle beast!

orzig 3y ago
One big open question for me is what my body counts as stress. I have had short, objectively stressful situations, which had no impact. My longer-term stresses feel like they are more of the style “it’s a job, that is why they pay you“ but switching jobs might have helped? It’s not like I can do that enough to get statistical significance. And I don’t think an outside observer would consider my new job definitely less stressful than my old one, but there might be some dimension, which is really important to some subconscious part of me. And I don’t think an outside observer would consider my new job definitely less stressful than my old one, but there might be some dimension which is really important to some subconscious part of me. That’s part of the reason that I resisted the stress explanation for so long: even if you accept it in general, it’s very unclear what to do about it, so I wanted to keep exploring more tangible causes
deleted 3y ago
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orzig 3y ago

One big open question for me is what my body counts as stress. I have had short, objectively stressful situations, which had no impact. My longer-term stresses feel like they are more of the style “it’s a job, that is why they pay you“ but switching jobs might have helped? It’s not like I can do that enough to get statistical significance. And I don’t think an outside observer would consider my new job definitely less stressful than my old one, but there might be some dimension, which is really important to some subconscious part of me. And I don’t think an outside observer would consider my new job definitely less stressful than my old one, but there might be some dimension which is really important to some subconscious part of me. That’s part of the reason that I resisted the stress explanation for so long: even if you accept it in general, it’s very unclear what to do about it, so I wanted to keep exploring more tangible causes

deleted 3y ago

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