Hi everyone - I just wondered how many people went through major life changes preceding diagnosis.
Research carried out in the 1970s suggested that there was a relationship between these ‘life changing’ events and subsequent illness. Life events are defined as those which require a period of readjustment afterwards, e.g. illness (self or loved ones), bereavement, divorce, etc. The researchers suggested that if a person had a number of these events in a short period of time, he/she was significantly more likely to become ill. Of course, the study can be criticised in a number of ways, but it is interesting nonetheless.
I looked at the Sky programme presented by Dawn Porter where one expert suggested that breast cancer takes 5 to 10 years to develop to the point of dx.
Seven years ago in the months of March and April, I split up from my husband of 20 years, my mother died, my wee dog died, my daughter was in a car accident, I had to try to remortgage my house, had numerous debts and so on. At the time I responded by drinking a bit too much. 10 months later I developed a very large fibroid in the womb, and just recently had the bc dx.
Just wondered if there was a relationship? Of course, it might just be that everyone has major life events and that loads of people don’t get a serious illness afterwards!
Would be interested to have your thoughts.
alex
I had 5 very stressful years leading up to this.
We had a major flood at our house in London in 2001 which took 2 years to sort out; we lost 80% of our possessions and were in and out of temp accommodation and hotels during this time. I had to move to Scotland on my own in 2002 as my dad was ill and developing the early stages of dementia; I only saw my OH one weekend a month when he could get up from London. The rest of the family were quite happy to let me get on with things whilst they took a back seat. Being a carer was really stressful as my dad got worse and became stuck in WW2. Dad then had to go into care and I felt I had failed him - I actually found watching my dad’s struggle with dementia harder that my own situation when I got BC.
We moved up here permanently in 2004, the one thing hanging over us was my OH was going to tribunal with his former employers over unpaid bonuses he should have received as a director. When the case went to tribunal it collapsed on a legal technicality.
My dad died on October 5th 2005 and I was diagnosed with BC on October 16th 2006.
I have often wondered whether stress was a factor in my situation.
In the early 90’s I went through a period of about 5 years where I launched from one crisis to another - I had my first baby, who was ill for a long time and finally diagnosed with Coeliac disease, we moved house, my parent split up, my father died, loads of family problems & fallings out going on, I got a new job which was very stress full in itself, had a very botched miscarriage at 13 weeks, and spent another stressful year trying to get pregnant again.
Had about 5 years then when things, in comparison went a bit better, but then at the start of the 00’s it all started again - my father in law died, my grandpa died, we moved house, my mother went through a very nasty divorce, my brother was killed, my second son was in hospital with a nasty spiral leg fracture and was then diagnosed with Type I diabetes and I continued in a stressful job throughout.
I have searched for research to support stress as a cause of BC, but havent found anything really substantial.I reaslise that it is a very subjective subject, but in the absence of any family history of anything, never mind cancer, am sure stress was a major contributory factor to my BC & mets, which was diagnosed in 2007.
If anyone has any info/research to back this up. would love to hear from you.
Before dx, my life was ok but afterwards has been a nightmare. I had chemo,rads etc and at the end of it my dad died very suddenly, I had to go back to work full time as live alone and had terrible side effects from arimidex.There may be many who have dx with bc after stressful life events but there are many more who are dx with no history of this. It is very easy to ‘blame’ one thing that causes bc. In fact the causes of bc are many and varied and even oncologists do not know the exact ‘reason’ for getting bc.It is very hard to live with fact that bc can appear without a discernable’reason’.
Thanks for your replies. Of course it is not possible to draw a cause and effect relationship between stress and bc, only to demonstrate that a relationship of sorts exists. And of course it is equally impossible to isolate all of the additional factors that might play a role. Added to all of that, I am asking people retrospectively and so of course reports are subjective.
Nevertheless I have heard others talk of periods of stress prior to dx so it is interesting. The research I referred to was carried out in relation to stress and its role in illness and did demonstrate a relationship between life events, stress and illness, thoough not specifically stress and bc.
I believe that stress does play a major role in most illnesses though, and think it might be important to try and learn coping strategies - i certainly have allowed myself to stress about the small stuff in the past and am working on changing it.
alex 
I spoke to my oncologist about this on my discharge last year and she said they are always very interested to hear about patients who have suffered periods of major stress leading up to diagnosis. She said whilst there is not real evidence of cancer being caused by stress, they do follow all the studies that are written about it. However, a relative of mines who is an oncology professor completely dismissed the idea when I spoke to him about it and my GP was the same.
Hi Cherub - the onc and GP are both looking from a position of scientific rigour, but as scientists they should not dismiss the idea out of hand. When someone suffers from chronic stress in particular (as might happen following a series of traumatic events), the immune system is affected. Cancer is not a natural state in the body and must occur when the body’s natural defence, i.e. immune system, is compromised. I think that in years to come we will see a far more holistic view and the hard scientists will learn a bit more about the mind body connection.
alex
xx
Just to add to this, I had a whole host of things happen to me during the time that lead to my diagnosis.
My dad was diagnosed with leukaemia;
I went through a course of IVF treatment for somebody else who got pregnant and then shortly after lost the baby (I was distraught about this);
I was burgled;
my grandmother suffered a heart attack and nearly died (I so was not ready for her to go anywhere);
I worked with a woman who was a real bully and gave me a really hard time and sometimes I was incredibly stressed out;
I left this job and started a new job where I was put under such an incredible amount of stress due to work load and the fact my boss could not say no to people giving her more work and I hated the job and again worked for somebody who was pretty much a bully;
I then went through another round of IVF for the same person as before and that didn’t work and then I found the lump in my armpit (the lump in my breast was there but I hadn’t realised it was a lump).
It was literally one thing after another for me. So who knows but I certainly had a huge amount of stress during the time leading up to diagnosis.
Ruby
i have always thought in the back of my mind that stress had something to do with my dx as the 7 years leading up to it were very stressful here goes,
1989 lost my beloved mother to lung cancer
1993 had miscarriage then partner leaves me for some one else
1995 new partner and sadly another miscarriage
1996 was blessed with a beautiful baby girl to same partner but unfortunatley we split up soon after she was born that was in feb 96 then in may 96 was dx with bc
just makes you wonder
My life has been a series of major life events, mainly horrendous, sometimes good. Why over analyse? You can’t change the fact that life events happen so why do your head in thinking your BC may be caused by them, they’re gonna keep on happening!
I agree with ostrich although she put it much better than I could ,my whole life has been a sequence of stressful events,some awful some wonderful but still stressful .Maybe this is just what life is like,and for everyone ,not just those of us with BC
I really think this stress factor is a red herring.
My own life has been pretty good (I’m now 65) and I think I have only experienced the average amount of stress, bereavement , work problems etc. I have a close family and we would seem to have 'done well ’ in terms of work and success - but both my daughter and I have BC.
I had my 4 children early , breast-fed them all, was not overweight, didn’t smoke, didn’t drink etc etc - but I still got BC . I had somehow thought I was ‘not the type’ for it even though I had lost 4 good friends to it- and my daughter had already been diagnosed.
I think we are still a long way from finding out why some genes mutate- or why people get MS or Motor Neurone Disease …
I don’t know very much about BC and the link with stress. However, my son had cancer as a baby. After much research and many hours of questionning oncologists, it would seem that he always predisposed to develop cancer and it took some trigger to start it off. In his case, he developed a bad dose of measles when he was 10 mths and the tumour appeared soon after (very fast growing so only a matter of weeks). Therefore, in theory, those who are predisposed to cancer need something to kick it off. Its a well know fact that stress lowers the immune system and also when under stress, people often neglect themselves drastically so again leaving themselves vulnerable. However, I am sure that the dodgy cells must have present to begin with. Otherwise, everyone who has stress, infections etc would develop cancer and that is not the case. There is little known about these so called links but stress will not be a direct cause and probably you would have gone on to develop cancer anyway.
I don’t think it’s realistic for people to have no stress in their lives and some stress is a good thing. Thankfully, my life is now pretty much balanced, I take what comes along and have learned very much how to go with the flow. If I do start feeling a bit stressed I do something about it.
Cherub, you are right about the need for stress. Its not the stress that causes us problems; its our reaction and response to it. Some people, like fast jet pilots, can endure horrendous stress and actually find it a postive thing whereas others find trivial things stressful. For example, one of my friends patients complained of being under enormous stress. My friend, thinking something awful had happened, asked her why. She replied because she had been made chairwoman of the golf club!!! God help her if she gets BC!
agree about the need for stress too - it’s what gets me to do my work well, a bit of pressure…think that’s healthy and neccessary. However I get anxious and ‘stressed’ by ridiculously small things too which are not helpful and drag me down. Am thinking of big stresses in my life but the major ones happened a very long time ago…death of my younger brother for example…but can’t pinpoint anything huge from say 5-10 years ago - moved house,but that was a good move,sad to leave my friends, but nothing disastrous. My dad had cancer 5 yrs ago and my SIL was dx with aggressive bc 4 yrs ago (both very well now) so that was quite stressful I think. Beloved father in law died last summer and that was very,very upsetting but I felt I’d really grieved properly for him -I’ve never cried so much (am not a cry-y person really,too buttoned up !) - I think maybe a was releasing grief from way back as I never properly acknowledged the loss of my brother. Hmmm
I have thought about this before. After being given the diagnosis of breast cancer and told about the long wait I would have for treatment I was told by my then consultant (I changed to another hospital)not too worry or get too stressed as that could be bad. I think I would have to have been superhuman not to worry when I’d just been told I had cancer! I then went home and found out the same day that a close family friend had been killed. So much for avoiding traumas.
What reduced my stress was changing to a consultant who didn’t go on about keeping stress free but rather one who actually explained things properly to me, and who cared enough to get things moving quickly for me.
I think about my parents (and their generation) and the traumas they went through e.g with the war etc and also trauamatic life events but neither of my parents got cancer. My life has certainly had its share of traumas some of them big and I got cancer but other people go through the same or worse and don’t get it.
The problem is that we can’t avoid traumas in life and if in addition to coping with that trauma we then worry on top that we might be triggering cancer in our bodies, life will seem unbearably onerous won’t it? It places a huge weight of responsibility on cancer patients to try to avoid stress and traumas and that’s completely unreaslistic. That’s enough to make me worried and stressed in itself!
I sometimes think that stress is the 21st century way of explaining things we don’t know about.
Elinda x
I have posted this on behalf of new user Carol.
Regards Sam (BCC Facilitator)
My main concern is that nutrition is not utmost importance towards patient care. I have to personally deal with politics from my oncologist after refusing chemotherapy and I work in the system.
Fortunately, with my nutrition and positive attitude I am overall keeping well. My breast care nurse and surgeon have time to listen to me.
I feel truly sad as the health profession forget that patients are very knowledgeable and are keen to change their diet if support was provided and encouraged by the health professionals.
When I was first diagnosed 12 years ago, had chemotherapy and radiation and got through it with my nutrition and diet.
Every cancer patient going through the system should be seen by a nutritionist to give that quality of care which the patient has control and in the long term saves the NHS on a financial basis.
This is also part of the survivorship program for cancer patients.
I would love to hear from others who have had a local occurence of the chest wall.
Hi Girls
I agree that most people have trauma in their lives and most do not get this disease so its not a simple thing. I think Cathy is probably right when she talks about predispositions. There is an explanation of schizophrenia for example, called the ‘diathesis stress’ model, which suggests that a person can have a predisposition to develop the disorder and that can be triggered by acutely stressful events.
No one should feel bad about not coping well with stress though. We all have different levels of reactivity in the nervous system (thought to be genetically inherited), and this means that in some people the physiological processes involved in experiencing stress are triggered more easily.
Oh I wish I was more laid back!! Working on my stress responses as much as I can though.
alex
xx
agree there,with the predisposition thing - I have OCD and I believe it was inherent in me (from where I have no idea) and is/was triggered by events in my life