{"id":8615,"date":"2024-06-27T15:17:20","date_gmt":"2024-06-27T15:17:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=8615"},"modified":"2024-06-27T15:25:45","modified_gmt":"2024-06-27T15:25:45","slug":"why-chronic-illness-symptoms-are-commonly-dismissed-as-just-stress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=8615","title":{"rendered":"Why Chronic Illness Symptoms are Commonly Dismissed as Just Stress"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Chronic disease symptoms are often dismissed by physicians \u2014 and patients themselves. But that comes from a complex relationship between sickness and stress itself.<\/p>\n

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Amina AlTai had always prided herself on her drive and resilience. When she began experiencing brain fog and fatigue, Ms. AlTai, 39, simply thought it was from working long hours in her marketing job. So she started writing down reminders to keep herself on track. But then her hair started falling out, she gained and lost a lot of weight and she started having gastrointestinal issues.<\/p>\n

Ms. AlTai was certain that something was wrong. But the first six doctors she saw didn\u2019t take her seriously, she said. Some told her she had so much hair that losing a little bit shouldn\u2019t be a problem. Several said she seemed healthy, and dismissed her symptoms<\/a> as simply stress. It was only when another physician ordered blood tests that Ms. AlTai was diagnosed with Hashimoto\u2019s disease and celiac disease, two autoimmune conditions that can damage the thyroid and the small intestine.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey called me and told me, \u2018Don\u2019t go into work. Go to the hospital instead, because you\u2019re days away from multiple organ failure,\u2019\u201d Ms. AlTai remembered. The two chronic diseases had upended her ability to regulate hormones and absorb critical vitamins and nutrients.<\/p>\n

Scientists now know that stress is intimately linked with many chronic diseases: It can drive immune changes and inflammation in the body that can worsen symptoms of conditions like asthma, heart disease, arthritis, lupus and inflammatory bowel disease. Meanwhile, many issues caused by stress \u2014 headaches, heartburn, blood pressure problems, mood changes \u2014 can also be symptoms of chronic illnesses.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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For doctors and patients, this overlap can be confusing: Is stress the sole cause of someone\u2019s symptoms, or is something more serious at play?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really hard to disentangle,\u201d said Scott Russo, director of the Brain-Body Research Center at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.<\/p>\n

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Chronic disease symptoms are often dismissed by physicians \u2014 and patients themselves. But that comes from a complex relationship between sickness and stress itself.Amina AlTai had always prided herself on her drive and resilience. When she began experiencing brain fog and fatigue, Ms. AlTai, 39, simply thought it was from working long hours in her marketing job. So she started writing down reminders to keep herself on track. But then her hair started falling out, she gained and lost a lot of weight and she started having gastrointestinal issues.Ms. AlTai was certain that something was wrong. But the first six doctors she saw didn\u2019t take her seriously, she said. Some told her she had so much hair that losing a little bit shouldn\u2019t be a problem. Several said she seemed healthy, and dismissed her symptoms as simply stress. It was only when another physician ordered blood tests that Ms. AlTai was diagnosed with Hashimoto\u2019s disease and celiac disease, two autoimmune conditions that can damage the thyroid and the small intestine.\u201cThey called me and told me, \u2018Don\u2019t go into work. Go to the hospital instead, because you\u2019re days away from multiple organ failure,\u2019\u201d Ms. AlTai remembered. The two chronic diseases had upended her ability to regulate hormones and absorb critical vitamins and nutrients.Scientists now know that stress is intimately linked with many chronic diseases: It can drive immune changes and inflammation in the body that can worsen symptoms of conditions like asthma, heart disease, arthritis, lupus and inflammatory bowel disease. Meanwhile, many issues caused by stress \u2014 headaches, heartburn, blood pressure problems, mood changes \u2014 can also be symptoms of chronic illnesses.For doctors and patients, this overlap can be confusing: Is stress the sole cause of someone\u2019s symptoms, or is something more serious at play?\u201cIt\u2019s really hard to disentangle,\u201d said Scott Russo, director of the Brain-Body Research Center at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8617,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8615"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8615\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8618,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8615\/revisions\/8618"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}