The cortisol connection?

[Judes]

Hi all, been a while. I come and read every now and then. Still trying to adjust to this disease. My rheumy finally put a diagnosis for Sj?grens on my chart with my positive lip biopsy, although she did it reluctantly and it without even telling me about it until I confronted her, ugh.

Anyway, I have a question about how stress is involved in this disease? I know a severely stressful event set me off, the death of my dear sister who was my best friend is what triggered me. It just so happens to have coincided with menopause for me too! Or it induced menopause even possibly?

But this is what I'm trying to figure out. So stress releases cortisol in your system which is supposedly inflamitory, and can trigger flares. But the meds used to counter a flare are steroids (prednisone) or synthetic forms of cortisol? How can cortisone help a flare if it is also involved in the triggering of flares. This has me very confused. Maybe I am misunderstanding the whole stress reaction. Any insight anyone can offer would be appreciated.

[irish]

I am sorry that you are having such a hard time. I know that grief really knocks ones socks off because my hubby passed away 5 years ago and it changed my life forever. Just one day at a time. It is more than the cortisol that gets screwed up in our body during a shock like this. It affects our thyroid and every other gland in our body. Grief can produce many other illnesses to crop up besides the autoimmune diseases.

I can't give you an intelligent answer on that but I do know that stress releases more than cortisol. There are many other hormones plus many other products in the blood that are involved in the inflammatory process.  Every organ in our body has blood components that are affected by stress and when you add all this up there is a lot involved in the stress response. The adrenals have the fight or flight so we can't blame them for all of our problems.

There is another gal on this site who will probably enter in the discussion and she knows a whole lot so will wait for here. Thanks. Irish

[susanep]

I am sorry for the loss of your dear sister and friend. I do know that stress is hard on me so I try harder where I can to keep stress away.

susanep

[Linda196]

I'm very sorry for your loss.

Cortisol's relationship with inflammation is "complicated" as social media would say.

Initially, Cortisol is a potent anti-inflammatory, reducing acute inflammation, usually very effectively. Unfortunately, it has a long term delayed action of pro-inflammation. Studies show that concentrated treatment with cortisol, while relieving inflammation in the acute phase, can cause a delayed inflammatory response when the concentrated levels drop that can be more severe than the initial inflammation, almost like a rebound effect. It's as if the high level during treatment sets the body up to tolerate more inflammation, so the disease or injury process obliges by providing more inflammation! It also seems to dull the body's ability to respond to stress with appropriate Cortisol levels, leading in a round about way to the stress causing inflammation.

There seem to be several studies, but I found this one to be the easiest to understand, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3186928/
but a search of "cortisol, anti- or pro- inflammatory" will show a lot of results

[Judes]

Hi and thanks so much for the information. It makes sense. I was having a hard time understanding his stress which produces cortisol could cause inflammation when it is also give to combat it. Good information Linda. And thanks all for kindness.