PTSD symptoms and chronic pain, fibromyalgia, and rheumatoid arthritis

[sparrow_]

Hi everyone. I'm in my 20s and was recently diagnosed with PTSD and with rheumatoid arthritis. 2016 was the worst year of my life and I had to relive a lot of the terror and anxiety and loss of control that I felt when I was abused as a child. I have a few family members with RA (the onset for them was much later than for me) but this stress apparently triggered it. I have previously managed my stress enough but with too many bad things happening at once, I began to have extreme anxiety, depression, and panic attacks. I was looking for information on this and found that recent research links an increase in PTSD symptoms to higher risk of developing RA in women. http://www.medpagetoday.com/Rheumatology/Arthritis/55450
If anyone else comes across information like this please share.

[KimKim]

Hi. I'm new to this site so I am just seeing this. This is interesting. I also have an autoimmune disease arthritis. It's currently diagnosed as psoriatic arthritis. Thanks for sharing.

[I like vanilla]

I recently read an article in ScienceDaily that scientists have shown that people with PTSD have significantly different gut bacteria than those who do not, even controlling for trauma - those who experienced trauma and developed PTSD and those who did not. Those who developed PTSD had lover levels of the bacteria associated with proper functioning of the immune system, and related inflammation in the body.

The results are *correlations* rather than cause-and-effect, and the researchers are clear about that. But, whether the one came first or the other it starts to help make sense of the fact that so many who post here also have symptoms and illnesses related to the auto-immune system. The research is also promising as it might help to lead to relief of both the physical and psychological/emotional impacts of PTSD/CPTSD.