diverticulitis - caused by stress?

[DVT_andme]

I had two attacks recently after a stressful experience. I would be interested if others experienced the same thing. Dr. John Sarno, seems to think it can be a cause. Understanding that there are physical attributes to this but can they be triggered by stress?

[Susan M]

Stress have defintely been a factor for me. I believe stress interfers with your immune system functioning.

[Joy]

I think, as Susan says, that anything that affects your immune system, stress, lack of sleep, poor eating, bad nutrition, alcohol etc. can contribute. Since this is an infection your body needs all the help it can get to fight it. However, I would not call them causes, they just weaken the immune system and prevent it from fighting the infection in my opinion. I had several flareups after drinking red wine, so I stopped doing that! Now that I have had the surgery I do have a glass from time to time again :-) Hope that you feel better soon! Joy

[deborah]

according to my doc "everybody" has some diverticulous...however...only a small percentage of people go on to have flareups that eventually end up with colon surgery....we on this forum are those few....it seems to me that once you start getting flareups it is a given you will eventually end up with the surgery somewhere down the road.....do you agree??

i dont' know if stress caused my diverticulous but i am certain it contributes to the flareups.....when i am stressed i am not taking care of myself as i should...drinking lots of water, eating healthy..etc..etc...this in turn upsets my bowel causing irritation and constipation which just leads me down the path to a flareup if i don't get back on track really fast...sometimes i catch it "just in time"...

My surgeon has referred me to another surgeon ....one who specializes in lap surgery....she feels this is where i need to be....so...i am on my way to eventually having the surgery.....not looking forward to it but resigned that it has to be...i am tired of being scared of every pain and 2nd guessing everything i eat...at 57 years old it is probably best to get it over with now....

i find this forum very helpful and when i have my surgery i hope i can contribute in some positive way to help others on the way to theirs....

[Joy]

Hi Deborah, you sould like you feel just like I felt last Fall, and I had the surgery in December and am so very glad I did. I fell great these days, had fogotten how good I could feel :-) Take Care, Joy

[Andre]

Stress is definitely a factor in my flare ups. It seems that when I am running late for work I am much more likely to have a flare up. This in turn makes the flare up more acute which causes more stress. It is a vicious cycle that escalates until there is an episode of vomiting and diarrhea. If I can reduce the stress I can reduce the number of flare ups.