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Georgia
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05 Jan 2012, 12:54 pm

Hi--

I've seen mention of people who have Aspergers or Autism along with PTSD or Complex PTSD.

Do you have health problems as a result of the PTSD?

I ask because after testing me for everything they can think of, my doctors are at a loss as to why I am sick.
One question i have been avoiding is how early abuse and neglect may have changed/influenced outcomes for me in terms of my long term health, and the severity of my aspie symptoms as I get older.

It's asking a lot, but some personal insight would be appreciated.

Thanks.


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Ozzer
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05 Jan 2012, 1:04 pm

I have Asperger's and PTSD (along with other things). I also have health problems that are unexplained. I know there is a high correlation between PTSD and somatoform disorders. http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/294908-overview



Sweetleaf
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05 Jan 2012, 1:31 pm

Well I feel like it has reduced my appetite so as a result I probably don't eat enough, It feels like I have less energy because constantly being more or less on edge kind of has a tendency to exaust my energy supply and it does not help with the fact I already easily got muscle cramps and back pain because I'm usually not physically relaxed. Other then that I have not noticed any specific health related issues.


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ghostar
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05 Jan 2012, 3:12 pm

Sweetleaf wrote:
Well I feel like it has reduced my appetite so as a result I probably don't eat enough, It feels like I have less energy because constantly being more or less on edge kind of has a tendency to exaust my energy supply and it does not help with the fact I already easily got muscle cramps and back pain because I'm usually not physically relaxed. Other then that I have not noticed any specific health related issues.


For me, the reality that I am almost constantly in fight-or-flight mode routinely exhausts my immune system to the point that I get really sick at least once or twice per year. Thus far, the only way that I have found to combat this consistently is the exercise (yoga, running, speed-walking, aerobics, pilates) to the point of near-exhaustion 5 or more days per week.

If I take more than two days off of exercise, the anxiety cycle begins again and it is much harder to break than to just avoid in the first place.

It has taken me 13 years of trying every type of therapy available to figure this out.

Hope this helps.



Sweetleaf
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05 Jan 2012, 3:37 pm

ghostar wrote:
Sweetleaf wrote:
Well I feel like it has reduced my appetite so as a result I probably don't eat enough, It feels like I have less energy because constantly being more or less on edge kind of has a tendency to exaust my energy supply and it does not help with the fact I already easily got muscle cramps and back pain because I'm usually not physically relaxed. Other then that I have not noticed any specific health related issues.


For me, the reality that I am almost constantly in fight-or-flight mode routinely exhausts my immune system to the point that I get really sick at least once or twice per year. Thus far, the only way that I have found to combat this consistently is the exercise (yoga, running, speed-walking, aerobics, pilates) to the point of near-exhaustion 5 or more days per week.

If I take more than two days off of exercise, the anxiety cycle begins again and it is much harder to break than to just avoid in the first place.

It has taken me 13 years of trying every type of therapy available to figure this out.

Hope this helps.


I am usually exausted in general.....so I don't really see how I could bring myself to excercise that much where would I get the motivation for that? Not to mention as I said I probably don't eat enough so I don't think it would be safe for me to excercise to the point of exaustion that often considering my body is already in fight or flight mode far too often. But I am glad that works for you.


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ghostar
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05 Jan 2012, 3:50 pm

Sweetleaf wrote:
ghostar wrote:
Sweetleaf wrote:
Well I feel like it has reduced my appetite so as a result I probably don't eat enough, It feels like I have less energy because constantly being more or less on edge kind of has a tendency to exaust my energy supply and it does not help with the fact I already easily got muscle cramps and back pain because I'm usually not physically relaxed. Other then that I have not noticed any specific health related issues.


For me, the reality that I am almost constantly in fight-or-flight mode routinely exhausts my immune system to the point that I get really sick at least once or twice per year. Thus far, the only way that I have found to combat this consistently is the exercise (yoga, running, speed-walking, aerobics, pilates) to the point of near-exhaustion 5 or more days per week.

If I take more than two days off of exercise, the anxiety cycle begins again and it is much harder to break than to just avoid in the first place.

It has taken me 13 years of trying every type of therapy available to figure this out.

Hope this helps.


I am usually exausted in general.....so I don't really see how I could bring myself to excercise that much where would I get the motivation for that? Not to mention as I said I probably don't eat enough so I don't think it would be safe for me to excercise to the point of exaustion that often considering my body is already in fight or flight mode far too often. But I am glad that works for you.


Your predicament is SOOOOO understandable to me. It took me years and years of fighting to get healthy enough for daily exercise. Keep resting and taking care of you in your way. :)



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05 Jan 2012, 3:51 pm

I've been diagnosed with CFS and dysautonomia (and some other mysterious things like acquired cognitive problems), but don't have PTSD. But I think there is a link with being constantly stressed like ghostar said; and PTSD is basically an intense stress response that fails to terminate.

Oh, and there are studies that do show a link between PTSD and fibromyalgia/CFS.

Basically, chronic-stress = health problems, of a type which are probably going to be kind of vague and hard to get diagnosed and treated.



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05 Jan 2012, 4:14 pm

ghostar wrote:
Sweetleaf wrote:
ghostar wrote:
Sweetleaf wrote:
Well I feel like it has reduced my appetite so as a result I probably don't eat enough, It feels like I have less energy because constantly being more or less on edge kind of has a tendency to exaust my energy supply and it does not help with the fact I already easily got muscle cramps and back pain because I'm usually not physically relaxed. Other then that I have not noticed any specific health related issues.


For me, the reality that I am almost constantly in fight-or-flight mode routinely exhausts my immune system to the point that I get really sick at least once or twice per year. Thus far, the only way that I have found to combat this consistently is the exercise (yoga, running, speed-walking, aerobics, pilates) to the point of near-exhaustion 5 or more days per week.

If I take more than two days off of exercise, the anxiety cycle begins again and it is much harder to break than to just avoid in the first place.

It has taken me 13 years of trying every type of therapy available to figure this out.

Hope this helps.


I am usually exausted in general.....so I don't really see how I could bring myself to excercise that much where would I get the motivation for that? Not to mention as I said I probably don't eat enough so I don't think it would be safe for me to excercise to the point of exaustion that often considering my body is already in fight or flight mode far too often. But I am glad that works for you.


Your predicament is SOOOOO understandable to me. It took me years and years of fighting to get healthy enough for daily exercise. Keep resting and taking care of you in your way. :)


Yeah if I could set my mind to such a thing I imagine it would take quite a while but it seems like the worst part of it for me is the feeling detatched from people, that feeling of having no real future to look forward to and the self destructive behavior that contributes to, and I hate having to mentally re-experiance how I felt during that whole screwed up event that caused the PTSD. Oh and then there are the occasional angry outbursts...If someone sets me off that disturbs me because I am not really an agressive person. Also the numbness I feel gets to me sometimes.


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ghostar
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05 Jan 2012, 4:29 pm

Sweetleaf wrote:
ghostar wrote:
Sweetleaf wrote:
ghostar wrote:
Sweetleaf wrote:
Well I feel like it has reduced my appetite so as a result I probably don't eat enough, It feels like I have less energy because constantly being more or less on edge kind of has a tendency to exaust my energy supply and it does not help with the fact I already easily got muscle cramps and back pain because I'm usually not physically relaxed. Other then that I have not noticed any specific health related issues.


For me, the reality that I am almost constantly in fight-or-flight mode routinely exhausts my immune system to the point that I get really sick at least once or twice per year. Thus far, the only way that I have found to combat this consistently is the exercise (yoga, running, speed-walking, aerobics, pilates) to the point of near-exhaustion 5 or more days per week.

If I take more than two days off of exercise, the anxiety cycle begins again and it is much harder to break than to just avoid in the first place.

It has taken me 13 years of trying every type of therapy available to figure this out.

Hope this helps.


I am usually exausted in general.....so I don't really see how I could bring myself to excercise that much where would I get the motivation for that? Not to mention as I said I probably don't eat enough so I don't think it would be safe for me to excercise to the point of exaustion that often considering my body is already in fight or flight mode far too often. But I am glad that works for you.


Your predicament is SOOOOO understandable to me. It took me years and years of fighting to get healthy enough for daily exercise. Keep resting and taking care of you in your way. :)


Yeah if I could set my mind to such a thing I imagine it would take quite a while but it seems like the worst part of it for me is the feeling detatched from people, that feeling of having no real future to look forward to and the self destructive behavior that contributes to, and I hate having to mentally re-experiance how I felt during that whole screwed up event that caused the PTSD. Oh and then there are the occasional angry outbursts...If someone sets me off that disturbs me because I am not really an agressive person. Also the numbness I feel gets to me sometimes.


I can also identify with your bothersome outbursts. My therapist compared me to the little boy in the story/parable where he has his finger plugging a leak in a dam. This little boy is preventing his entire town from being flooded single-handedly but cannot go for help because if he takes his finger out of the dam, all is lost so he is stuck there saving everyone with no help.

Well, you and I are perhaps like that little boy. We are always trying so hard to hold things together that when we are forced to address some relatively minor thing (like unfair treatment by persons in positions of authority for instance), we react in an inordinately aggressive manner.

Does this sound like what you experience, Sweetleaf? It sure as heck sounded like me when my therapist shared the analogy with me.



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05 Jan 2012, 4:35 pm

I have some PTSD problems...when they were at their worst, they affected my sleep most of all. I rarely sleep through the night, and used to wake up sometimes having trouble breathing...I'm not sure what that was about, but when I went to see a doctor they couldn't find anything wrong with me physically. It affected my appetite some, but not with enough consistency to cause major weight loss/gain. I went on mood stabilizers (lamotrigine) for a few months and that helped some.



Nanoscale
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27 Jul 2013, 6:17 am

Sweetleaf wrote:
Well I feel like it has reduced my appetite so as a result I probably don't eat enough


Same here, after my trauma I haven't feel hungry, have lost weight and feel weak. I also have joint pain, insomnia and take sleeping pills, I'm tired all the time, most of the time emotionally numb but get anger bursts by myself (well, can't get them around people because I'm in my house at all times and only go to the supermarket once a week although when I'm in the supermarket, I feel irritated by people and feel angry) and when I do, I scream and punch myself and throw things...
My legs ache and I feel about 100 years old.



slave
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05 Aug 2013, 11:18 pm

[quote="Georgia"]Hi--

I've seen mention of people who have Aspergers or Autism along with PTSD or Complex PTSD.

Do you have health problems as a result of the PTSD?

I ask because after testing me for everything they can think of, my doctors are at a loss as to why I am sick.
One question i have been avoiding is how early abuse and neglect may have changed/influenced outcomes for me in terms of my long term health, and the severity of my aspie symptoms as I get older.

It's asking a lot, but some personal insight would be appreciated.

Thanks.[

C-PTSD causes a 30% reduction in telomere length.

This can cause a 30% reduction in life span.

IE. you die young

PTSD=the gift that keeps on giving



slave
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05 Aug 2013, 11:19 pm

[quote="Georgia"]Hi--

I've seen mention of people who have Aspergers or Autism along with PTSD or Complex PTSD.

Do you have health problems as a result of the PTSD?

I ask because after testing me for everything they can think of, my doctors are at a loss as to why I am sick.
One question i have been avoiding is how early abuse and neglect may have changed/influenced outcomes for me in terms of my long term health, and the severity of my aspie symptoms as I get older.

It's asking a lot, but some personal insight would be appreciated.

Thanks.[ ]

C-PTSD causes a 30% reduction in telomere length.

This can cause a 30% reduction in life span.

IE. you die young

PTSD=the gift that keeps on giving