Stress is Overrated

Stress. We've all dealt with it at one time or another. It's not fun, to say the least. And I'm sure we all know that stress can cause some minor health problems, all of which are easily treated by learning how to de-stress.

But in today's world, where stress abounds, I think doctors have begun to give it too much credit. In my own eperience with multiple doctors over the past four years, I've come to realize that stress tends to be a favorite diagnosis.

For example...

For the past four years, I have dealt with moderate to severe stomach pain. It has been getting worse, and mostly bothers me in the early morning, preventing me from eating breakfast. So I go to my pediatrician (this was back when I was still young enough to see him.) and ask him why my stomach does this. He tells me, without performing any kind of examination or asking me any questions, that it's just stress from school. He tells me that stress is causing my stomach to produce too much acid, and that I should not skip breakfast, and I should drink milk to deal with the excess acid. One problem: eating makes it worse. Milk makes it worse. Some days, eating just a few bites of breakfast makes me feel like someone has punched me in the gut. I told him this. He firmly stood by his diagnosis and treatment. I stop eating breakfast most days, and I deal with less pain.

Another example is with my eyes. I have very bad eyesight. It has been progressively getting worse since the third grade. I'm now at the point where I can't read without my glasses, even though I'm not supposd to wear them while reading. My eyes hurt all the time, and cause me severe headaches. I told my eye doctor this. He claimed my eyes were fine, that they had not goteen much worse at all, and that I was getting migraines from stress, which were in turn causing my eyes to hurt. Since that last visit, my depth perception and periphial vision have been deteriorating. I don't call that stress; I call that a problem.

Then my mom takes me to her doctor because of my random aches and pains. I'm especially concerned about my left knee, which has been giving me problems since middle school, problems which have only been getting worse. It randomly gives out underneath of me, has sharp, stabbing pains under the kneecap, and aches constantly, despite any pain medication I may take. This doctor tests me to see if my Lymes is acting up. That comes back negative, and what does she say? Stress is the culprit.

Then today, I went to my gyn. I've been having serious problems with my menstrual cycle and am fast heading right back down the road to anemia because of it. This happened about two years ago due to an ovarian cyst, which I've since learned runs in my family. My mom had them, and so did my grandmother. Well, I took birth control for nearly a year to get my hormones under control and get rid of the cyst. I have been off birth control for a year. And it's happening again. Just like before. What am I told? It's stress. Stress caused me to not ovulate this month, and got my hormones all out of whack. It'll fix itself. Excuse me? The way this was explained to me was that I had to wait a month, and then I'd be back to normal. It's been MORE than a month, and the issue is worse. It's pretty clear to me that this is not fixing itself. Oh, but I can take the birh control pills again if I want to. Even if it is another cyst, that'll take care of it. ... This I know. I want to know if there's an underlying issue that could CAUSE the cysts. Not be told it's stress.

Now here's the kicker. I am probably one of the most un-stressed people I know. I stress about things for short periods of time only. I meditate. I pray. I don't keep things bottled up anymore. I exercise. I write. I de-stress on a daily basis. And yet each problem is getting worse. It seems to me that stress is not my problem. Stress may aggravate the problem, but there is something that's not right, and I want to know what it is.

And yet every doctor I see can only tell me that it's stress. No tests for everything that runs in my family. No tests for anything that could cause these issues. Very few questions about anything are asked. But the answer is always stress. Why? I'm fairly certain that doctors should at least be concerned if whatever the problem is has been going on for years. They should ask more questions, take a little more time to figure things out, and make sure that there is no underlying condition causing the symptoms, not just write it off as stress and push you out the door before you've had time to broach the subject of the possibility of it being something more.

Stress is given way too much credit. Yes, it can cause health problems. But it isn't the explanation for everything. And it shouldn't be given as the explanation for everything.

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