We all know that stress can cause a variety of health issues or cause them to get worse, however did you know stress can worsen you MS?
Researcher David Mohr has been working with MS patients for the last 20 years and had patients tell him that stress caused their MS to worsen. At the time, most physicians did not believe stress could have an effect in multiple sclerosis, he stated.
David Mohr later found that patients with multiple sclerosis that attended stress management therapy for six months had fewer flare-ups and decreased brain lesions, this also slowed the diseases progression during the stress management therapy. However, not long after the weekly stress management stopped, new brain lesions appeared.
"It's clear that stress plays an important role in multiple sclerosis, and therapy may be a useful additional treatment, along with drug therapy," said David Mohr, PhD.
"It's clear that stress plays an important role in multiple sclerosis, and therapy may be a useful additional treatment, along with drug therapy," said David Mohr, PhD.
It is now clear that stress management therapy has a very important role in the disease's progression, therefore doing a weekly stress management course can not only improve your daily life, however this can also slow your multiple sclerosis's progress.
This recent study included of 121 patients who where randomly assigned to different groups, one group which received stress management therapy weekly for six months or to another group which received no stress management therapy.
During and after the stress management training, patients received brain imaging to study the brain lesions progress associated with MS, noticing the absence or presence of brain lesions is an important indication that the treatment is either working or not, however the treatment did work.
The participants who where in the stress management training where being taught by licensed psychologists, and in these courses they where taught how to deal with stress in your daily life. These patients also learned that for an event to be considered stressful to you and to your body, it must include these two factors: It has to feel like a threat to something with sentimental value to the person or any kind of value and they must think they have no control of the event whatsoever.
"Most people overestimate the threat and underestimate their ability to manage it," he said.
Meditation and relaxation strategies was taught for situation that stress could not be avoided, this was used to calm their physical response.
I would like thank the participants in this research! - Multiple Sclerosis Awareness
Michelle Clos a strong MS Fighter!
Mrs. Clos was diagnosed in 2001 and has been doing stress management training for a few years and has noticed some improvements, she has also taken her time to help others with MS on how to cope with stress in their daily lifes.
"When I was diagnosed, my doctor advised me to avoid stress, but gave me no tools to help me do that," she tells WebMD. "At first I tried to do everything, including working 60 hours a week to climb that corporate ladder. It took me about two years of feeling pretty terrible to recognize that I had to do things differently."
"It wasn't easy," she says. "By nature I am an anxious person, but when I learned to let the worry go I began to feel better."
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