autoimmune (thyroid) disorders and emotional stress?

[Hi Ho Silver]

Could your tired and achy feeling be due to dehydration from the previous evening's excessive crying?

[thekarens]

When I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism I had had several months worth of little energy. I felt wiped out most of the time and had to force myself to do anything.

[Crankin]

I think (not backed up by research) you can have an autoimmune reaction to stress. I have these types of reactions to mostly physical (i.e. hard, hard workouts) stress and sometimes emotional. I used to always think I was getting some big illness, but now, I deal with it by upping my yoga, drinking green tea, and making sure I'm babying myself in other ways. I have always been like this, but the severity of the reaction varies over time.

[OakLeaf]

I would agree, I also don't have links handy, but I'm pretty sure it's well established that the immune system is closely tied to stress hormones. I've had more asthma attacks in response to emotional stress than I have to environmental triggers.

[Catrin]

Autoimmune disorders of any kind are certainly impacted by stress (which raises cortisol) levels, for sure. This is a problem for people without autoimmune diseases or things like asthma as well, but it is certainly harder on those who do. Here is some information from Science Daily. There is certainly more information out there that addresses the same thing. As I once had advanced Graves Disease (thyroid was removed almost 30 years ago), I've personal experience with this.

It is also good to remember that a thyroid-related autoimmune disease isn't really about the thyroid - it is really about the underlying disordered autoimmune system itself that manifested by attacking your thyroid. This never made real sense to me until after my thyroid was removed (it was no longer controllable), and 30+ years later I still have problems with autoimmune disorders. So far nothing as serious as the Graves though, for which I am deeply thankful.