Is there a link between stress and BC?

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1

I was very interested to read the article in this autumn’s Amoena magazine about the subject of stress and possible link to breast cancer.

I was diagnosed last year - 2007 with DCIS aged 54.

Ever since 1993 I have been told by my GP that a dizziness I have been suffering with all these years, is stress…

It started soon after my mum died, which OK was stressful, but was also a relief because mum was very poorly and suffered up until the day she died.
One morning, I awoke, turned onto my left side in bed and the room just spun.
Every time I bent over my head went fuzzy and I was very close to passing out.
I also had my one year old daughter to look after which was hard going when she wanted to be picked up.

To cut a long story short, I went through every test imaginable, ears, scans and even a psychiatrist - my doctor was beginning to think I was making it all up - this went on for over three years.
I was at my whits’ end.

I realised I wasn’t going to receive any help at all from the doctors, they just didn’t know what was causing my dizziness, they just told me it was stress, or, it could be a trapped nerve in my neck (apparently, out of the seven vertebrae we have in our neck, four of mine have fused together) so I started relaxation classes - relaxing to the point of practically comatose - and literally just took paracetamol when I was feeling dizzy.
Eventually, I got the dizziness under control until the beginning of this year and seven months on, from my mastectomy.

I again, turned over in bed onto my left side and the room spun.
I went to see my GP who sent me to see a neck and bone specialist who told me…it’s stress.

So, I wonder if they are correct. I wonder if either stress brought on my BC or added to it, or would I have had BC anyway, stressed or not? Who knows, I certainly don’t.
I still cannot help feeling that doctors are too hasty to blame everything on stress, because of all the things I feel from time to time, I can’t say that I ever feel stressed…

Needless to say, I have now taught myself never to turn onto my left side in bed.

Linda

2

I’m no doctor, but they say we all have it and it takes something to trigget it off… especially at my younger age I am trying to fnd what triggered it, to try never to do it again - obviously I will get more stressed trying to find this out and know I will never find the answers. But certainly for me in the past 3 years, we have bought out first house - which was fairly stressful but nothing that most people don’t do every day… I was in a stressful job, and used to come home upset most nights - like you every morning after a good nights sleep I would have to sit on the end of the bed for a few minutes before the dizziness went and it took me until about 10am to fully awake and get over the headaches. But then I got promoted and got more money for less work and the work related stress went… I have more time in the evenings for me… my partner was also in a job he hated he too found another job, so we were both very happy… booked our holiday to Oz lots to look forward to… then along came Cancer - was it too little to late? Who knows? I guess we will never find out. If its tought me anything, its that nothing else matters i.e. work, housework stupid things that cause unnessessary stress, life is too short and we have to enjoy it as much a we can.

3

I had 5 years of really bad stress prior to my diagnosis, starting with being made homeless due to my house being flooded and ending with my dad’s death after a long struggle with dementia. In between I moved 450 miles from one end of the country to the other as I had to be my dad’s carer for a year and this meant living away from my OH. I was also interested to read this article in Amoena.

When I was discharged from oncology in the summer they said to me that they are always interested to follow stories about stress/cancer and they’d really like to see a good study into it as the findings are so sketchy at the moment. One oncologist I saw did say she believed stress was a trigger for things.

4

I was alwasy stressed out- had a very stressful job and travel around all over the place. Love life has been very unlucky so i think yes. May I ask the type of BC you had- i am triple negative, which leads me to belive more about the cause is my stress level instead of hormones…

5

I believe it may be a contributory factor as I’ve had an incredible amount of stress during the last 5 years.

I went through 3 lots of egg donation treatment to donate egss for somebody very close to me who couldn’t get pregnant without help. The first time she got pregnant and then lost the baby which was devastating then 3 weeks later she hammoraged and had to have emergency surgery. Then 2nd time she got pregnant and had a beautiful baby boy - but the birth was extremely traumatic as she developed pre-eclampsia and it all turned into an emergency situation (I was there at the birth). She was in hospital for 2 weeks after that. I then went through egg donation a third time for her and it didn’t work.

At the same time, I was in a new job where the woman I worked for stressed me out incredibly and I was so unhappy - she was a really bully.

I was also burgled and was extremely distressed about that.

My father was diagnosed with leukaemia and had treatment and thankfully is okay now.

My mum had a breast cancer scare and was told that this was it and I was petrified of losing her. She had the lump removed and it all thankfully turned out to be find.

My grandmother had a heart attack and nearly died - I was called at work to come straight to the hospital - she made the most miraculous recovery and thankfully she is doing ok.

So really - stress could definitely have been a huge contributory factor in me developing breast cancer!

6

I had very bad dizziness on and off for several years and it certainly wasn’t caused by stress. It was labrynthitis ( an upset deep inside the inner ear which controls your balance.) Mine was far worse during the menopause and it gradually got better as I got further through it. A reflexologist gave me a hand & finger exercise to do which finally really helped. I still use it sometimes.

7

The article in Amoena is extremely misleading. It is an extarordinary article…using a Dutch study which actually found NO significant link between breast cancer and stress to somehow say there was a link.

There have been countless studies on stress and breast cancer. The only ones finding a link are methodologically flawed (e’g. asking just women who have breast cancer after the event if they felt stressed). There is no sound evidence for a link between stress and breast cancer. Many people with breast cancer think there is a link but this is entirely different, and might be more usefully studied than wasting any more money on basic stress/breast acncer links studies.

The current edition of amoena magazine is dreadful, just dreadful…a very misleading article on recurrences and secondaries (Claiming 5% of women will get recurrence…joke?..though figures unclear its likely to be about 30%…and some documentation from NICE and once used on the BCC website says 50%)

Amoena also had an awful piece on the power of positive thinking.

thank goodness I get my bras from Nicola Jane…boycott Amoena!

I’m not sure why this edition dropped through my letter box as I asked them a while ago to stop sending (that was after they refused to publish a letter I’d written about Jane Plant’s book.)

Jane

8

Having been a reader of this forum for months, I’ve joined simply to respond to you, Linda! What you describe could be a fairly well known inner ear problem, the name of which escapes me, in which tiny amounts of debris (which are naturally present) become dislodged and interrupt the balancing mechanism in the ear. Please get yourself a referral to an ENT consultant, who can take you through a range of moments to shift the debris. I know from experience that this problem can be solved overnight, so there is no need for you to suffer any longer.

Best wishes,
Sass

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moments = movements! Sorry!

Sass

10

my hubby left me 2 years ago and since then i have had non stop stress. i am waiting for the results of my core biopsy, everybody has said that it is with all the stress i have had in the past 2 years, however one of the sunday papers was asking if drinking wine causes breast cancer and again since my hubby left i have drunk so much wine so who knows!!

11

Hi everyone

If anyone reads the Daily Mail then every day there is something that causes breast cancer. It is all rubbish. Stuff happens! Don’t beat yourselves up. Thought I was stressed by work but am much more stressed by my husband’s illness

Love

Dilys
xx

12

Jane …and all
I am interested - what are your views on Jane plants book - my brother bought it for me when originally diagnosed - 2000 ( 2008 now liver and bone mets) and i tried with the regime …but failed - in the ended I decided there was so much contradictory advice about diet, lifestyle and causes - that most people advocating a brand new " breakthrough" and full of must dos and dont dos were going to make my like too hard… also other people kept given me “wonder remedies” etc in the end I ignored them all…as for stress - I have always been quite a tense and busy person - but well able to relax as well - can’t help but think that these ideas help self blame for what has happened to us …and I think well maybe its just that" Sh** happens"…jayne

13

Agree with Dilys…and jaynemh…I was a very happy and relaxed/non stressed person before my diagnosis…x

14

When someone is under stress for long periods, there are physiological changes brought about by the “stress” hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol. This in turn, affects the immune system, which when functioning properly, will help mop up rogue cells. Therefore, long term stress must indirectly be a risk factor in cancer.

15

Jayne…

An invitation to me to say what I think about Jane Plant’s book! Welll I think (politely, cause I think worse) that on first read it can be compelling (it drove me off milk for a while but I came to my senses after a few months…a love of lemon and ginger tea is a lasting legacy!) but actually it is a very unsecintifc book…and is just a collection of random bits of research coupled with dubious anecdotes.

I feel angry about her book beacuse I know that it has influenced many people to follow her diet…often with great difficulty and on several occasions of women I have known been absolutely fruitless…they have got recurrences and died anyway. The book is a guilt inducer.

Some of the stuff she writes is shocking…like there’s a piece where she says she has given her diet to a particular number of people (can’t rememember the precisse number…63 or 87 or something) and they all lived but the few she gave the diet to who ‘cheated’ died. I think its appalling that a women who claims to be a scientist (she is a geologist) should make such claims.

As far as diet is concerned I jut go for the usual try to eat healthily stuff (cause you feel better if you do) but with loads of choccy and other treats. You can’t take your appetitie with you!

Cathy: your remarks about the immune system sound logical but are unfounded as far as cancer cells are concerned. No one yet understandds the process of cancer metatstesis and there is no sceintific evidence that stress indirecly is linked to breast acncer (there are a few studies showing that stress after breast acncer may reduce the risk of recurrence!!)

Jane

16

Jane,

My remarks about the link between the immune system and cancer are most certainly not unfounded. I attended a symposium yesterday where an eminent professor in oral medicine was talking about this exact topic, albeit in relation to oral cancer and some types of lymphoma which you surely will agree is cancer. I clearly am not as well educated in the subject of breast cancer as you, but I do know about other types. There is no conclusive evidence to suggest that the immune system will tackle an established cancer, but most certainly, but abnormal cells, which may in turn develop into malignant cells, will certainly be affected by the immune system.

17

Thanks Jane RA for your wise words.
I was very depressed 8 months before my diagnosis and I’d let it go on far too long without seeking help. I always wonder whether that long period of stress triggered my cancer - and it is reassuring to know that there is no evidence for that as yet.
Hope you are doing ok after your recent op.
Best wishes,
Rowena

18

Thanks Rowena…your cancer almost certainly would have been there long before 8 months prior to diganosis.

Jane

19

Thanks Jane - about replying re Plants book - what you says makes a lot of sense …and I think was lurking at the back of my mind but sometimes I fall into “these people must know better”…so out to buy a latte!..a guilt free one! thanks for your time…Jayne

20

I agree with Cathy59. I was a volunteer on a stress management programme last year arranged by the surgeons and oncologists at my breast clinic. The courses are taken by a clinical psychologist and what Cathy is talking about was the basis for the sessions; we were given course notes about this to take away every week. My oncologist told me they know there is a link, it just hasn’t been pinpointed yet which is why they need a lot more research into this.