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 Childhood physical abuse linked to later migraines
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Sky

USA
96 Posts

Posted - 06/17/2010 :  01:17:39  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
It's a shame society thinks child abuse is only physical punishment. As if the intimidation and harm done by the intentional withdrawal of love isn't abusive enough.

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(Reuters Health) - Adults and teenagers who suffered physical abuse as children may have a heightened risk of migraines, two new studies suggest.

Health

In one study, Canadian researchers found that migraines were twice as common among adults with a history of childhood physical abuse compared to those who reported no such abuse.

Similarly, the second study, of nearly 4,000 Taiwanese teenagers, found a higher prevalence of migraine among those who said they had ever been beaten by a family member. And the more frequent the abuse, the greater the chances of suffering migraines.

Both studies, which appear in the journal Headache, point to an association between childhood physical abuse and migraine, but do not prove that abuse itself causes migraines in some people.

The exact reasons for the connection are not clear. The Canadian study found that factors such as chronic stress and mood disorders like depression seemed to partly explain the relationship, but did not fully account for it.

"I thought that mood disorders and stress might explain it away, but they didn't," lead researcher Dr. Esme Fuller-Thomson, of the University of Toronto, said in an interview. "There must be something else going on."

She said that one possibility, based on laboratory research, has to do with the HPA axis -- a component of the nervous system involved in the body's response to stress, including levels of "stress hormones" like cortisol.

Studies have found that adults with a history of child abuse tend to show irregular patterns of HPA activation in response to stress, while people with migraines have been shown to have higher cortisol levels, on average, than people without the headaches.

That raises the possibility that abuse contributes to migraines by leading to dysfunction in the HPA axis.

Fuller-Thomson and her colleagues based their findings on data from a 2005 Canadian health survey. Of 13,000 respondents from that study, 7 percent said they had been physically abused as children.

Among adults who reported childhood abuse, 18 percent said they had been diagnosed with migraines. That compared with 9 percent of survey respondents who reported no past abuse.

The researchers then looked at a number of factors that could account for the abuse-migraine link. Those included "adverse childhood conditions" -- like parents' unemployment or drinking and drug use -- as well as respondents' own incomes and education levels, lifestyle habits, current stress levels and history of physical or mental health problems.

Many of those factors were linked to the risk of adulthood migraine and helped explain some of the relationship between physical abuse migraine. But even then, a history of abuse itself remained linked to a 36 percent greater risk of migraine.

In the Taiwanese study, researchers led by Dr. Jong-Ling Fuh, of Taipei Veterans General Hospital, evaluated headache symptoms and history of abuse among almost 4,000 13- to 15-year-olds.

Based on a standard questionnaire, the researchers diagnosed 23 percent of the teens with migraine or "probable" migraine. A similar percentage -- 24 percent -- said they had ever been "beaten" by a family member.

The researchers found that 30 percent of teenagers who reported such abuse had migraine symptoms, versus 21 percent of non-abused teens. What's more, the more frequent the abuse, the greater the risk of migraine: the headaches were diagnosed in 28 percent of teenagers who said they had "rarely" been beaten, and in 38 percent of those who said they had "sometimes or often" been abused.

Fuller-Thomson pointed out that physical abuse is "just one of many factors" that may contribute to migraine risk. "I don't want people with a history of abuse to think that they are destined to develop migraines," she said.

It is important, however, for future studies to try to uncover the reasons for the connection between physical abuse and migraine, according to Fuller-Thomson. "If we know the mechanism, it might be possible to intervene," she said.

For example, if post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in response to abuse were a factor, then treating the PTSD with cognitive behavior therapy could conceivably lower the risk of future migraines. But that, Fuller-Thomson said, is just speculation for now.

SOURCE: Headache, March 2, 2010 online.

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2scoops

USA
386 Posts

Posted - 06/21/2010 :  15:25:44  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
I've come to the conclusion that anyone who wasn't properly loved as a child or isn't loved as an adult is more likely to develop TMS symptoms and equivalents. I think a lot of the cause for many symptoms is fear. I believe that proper love casts out fear. If a child is physically abused, well that's not love and that child WILL experience fear, and will have a harder time trusting. There is no love in fear. I read this article today from Henry Wright who has had good results from treating fibromyalgia. I will post it below.

"Fibromyalgia is pain but no inflammation. How can you have pain with no inflammation? There's no pressure. There's no pressure on the nervous system and there is nothing organically wrong. How can you have pain when there's no reason for it? Fibromyalgia indicates pain in fibrous tissues, muscles, tendons, ligaments and other white connective tissues.

Etiology. The condition occurs mainly in females. In fact, fibromyalgia is basically a ninety-nine percent female disorder in America. But don't males have muscles and ligaments and tendons and white tissue? Don't males have bones and stuff? Aren't our skeletons and muscles pretty much the same? Then why is it a 99% female disorder? I'll tell you why in a minute.

The condition occurs mainly in females. Primary fibromyalgia syndrome is particularly likely to occur in healthy young women who tend to be stressed, tense, depressed, anxious and striving. Symptoms can be exacerbated by environmental or emotional stress or by a physician who does not give proper credence to the patient's concerns and discharges the matter as "all in the head."

What do you think the possible spiritual roots can be? Fear, anxiety, stress, drivenness, insecurity, depression. Now you understand why it is females, don't you?

Fibromyalgia is primarily the result of the failure of men to cover females.

I said fibromyalgia is primarily the result of men who have not taken care of the females and have left them stranded with responsibilities and cares and abandonment and issues that God did not create them to handle.

So they find themselves in an area of insecurity and fear, having to perform, having to exist not feeling loved, not feeling cared for, driven to exist. No one is covering them with love and they become scattered and smothered. All of a sudden this battleground of fear and anxiety surges nerve activity and the flaring of dendrites and now they've got fibromyalgia.

Begin to get rid of fibromyalgia in females by loving them, covering them, securing them and making them feel like they belong, like they're really the gift of God to men. The men need to repent to females for not taking care of God's daughters.

Fibromyalgia is very easy to get healed. It's simple because there's nothing organically wrong that causes it. It's not like cancer or some tissue that needs to be re-created. It's a result of the conflict and the fear. There's no treatment. There's nothing you can take and there's no cure in the natural. Many people in America today are free of fibromyalgia when they understand the battleground
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guej

115 Posts

Posted - 06/21/2010 :  16:12:55  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
2scoops:

What a great insert from Henry Wright. I couldn't have said it better myself. I suffer from "chronic myofascial pain" and/or "fibro", depending on what doctor I got the diagnosis from. Classic case of no inflammation, no physical etiology, just chronic pain in a muscle group that lasted well beyond any injury should.

In a nutshell, when my nervous system finally "blew up" 2 years ago, it was after many years of feeling absolutely overwhelmed and not supported. Work, kids, home, kids' schools and sports, etc....typical overload for a middle-aged woman who was trying to do it all, and do it all perfectly. I didn't feel appreciated or that I was getting the support I needed from my husband. In hindsight, and with the benefit of therapy, I didn't give myself the support I needed (I didn't feel that I deserved to take care of myself, based on childhood issues, etc..). The women who don't have these breakdowns still have the stress, but are confident enough and love themselves enough to either demand more of their husbands or they just don't put all that pressure on themselves. They are playing tennis, going for spa treatments, or hiring babysitters/nannies to help out. I used to resent them, but now I envy them. They think enough of themselves to put themselves first often enough so that the reservoir of internal rage doesn't get the point of overflowing into a full-blown pain syndrome. Even with this knowledge, I still find it hard to change my habits, but I'm working on it. Then I wonder why I"m still in pain when everyday I can feel myself tensing up with the pressure. I'd like to think I'm not beyond coming out of this, but at the very least, I'm trying to raise my daughter to not be a doormat. I can already see in her little 8 year old personality, a classic "people pleaser" and "good girl"...
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2scoops

USA
386 Posts

Posted - 06/21/2010 :  16:37:37  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
quej,

I'm sorry to hear about your situation. I can see a lot of pain and disease that have spiritual connections in my family. I have 2 aunts with fibro. Their father was verbally and physically abusive. Where there is no love, there also seems to be pain and disease. It's a shame more men have not love their wives and children. But, at the same time, if I never had my back pain, I would not gain the understanding of knowledge and truth. Pain has lead me to the truth, and I believe the truth can set you free!

You know, we all hear that we need food, water and shelter, but we all also need love and forgiveness. Love is what conquers fear. Fear is torment. I think your a step ahead of others though, as you have come to a place of knowledge, you see what others cannot.

You probably have been tensing up every since you can remember, it's how you unconditionally react to fear. You can look at others and think, they do this or they do that. But you have a wisdom they do not. Sometimes we can stay in the trap of pain and fear by our thoughts. Those negative thoughts, like I'll never get better. Try and see that they are just thoughts, we all have thoughts that aren't true. We don't even have to be in a stressful situation, our body can react stronglt to fearful thoughts. THat's how the cycle continues. We can also create tension by trying to get better, if that makes sense. Like looking for that magic, hidden repressed memory. Remember, it starts with a thought, thoughts can turn into fear, and fear creates tension. Knowledge of the truth is the penicillin. Don't beat yourself up, your on the journey to healing.
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Wavy Soul

USA
779 Posts

Posted - 06/21/2010 :  20:31:04  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
That article by Henry Wright about Fibro and heartache has blown my mind. I have ordered his book on Amazon.

I can definitely relate to the female pain of a man/men not being there for me, and the depth of this wound and how it seems like a lens on life somehow, and is bound to be related to my fibromyalgia - which has come up again recently.

I have extraordinary male support (but not right now an intimate partner), yet I've come to feel that the wound is deeper - even though it may have seemingly "come" from my father's abandonment of me (and repeating this in relationships).

I honestly feel that it's really about my relationship to "The Father." I'm not religious, but I do have why try to cultivate a personal relationship with my Source, as well as the impersonal connection in stillness and silence, and I've realized that letting that feeling of inner communion open up is probably my only hope for true and deep healing.

So I'm open to the Christian translation of all this, and am pretty good by now at "taking what I like and leaving the rest."

Anyone else?

Love is the answer, whatever the question
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guej

115 Posts

Posted - 06/21/2010 :  20:53:04  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
Thanks. I can definitely see how fear got me here and how fear keeps me here. Fear of the pain, fear of never getting out of pain, fear of what that will mean to my life. I know it's the negative emotions we attach to the pain that gives it significance and reinforces it. I'm just having a heck of a time ignoring it and being nonchalant about it! I'd say 3 out 10 times I can legitimately say "oh well" when I feel pain, and go about my business. The other 7 times, I'm thinking "OMG! I can't take this anymore"....even though I know that's just about the worst thought I can have. And yes, I can certainly relate to trying too hard to get better, and that being counter-productive. I'm having a bad day today, can't you tell!

As far as the emotional insight, I actually do appreciate how much I have come to understand myself over the past year. Pain, cancer, whatever the wake up call is, it's usually a blessing in disguise. I just have a hard time focusing on the positive when my brain and body are so tired from being in constant pain. Hopefully, the connection between the mind/life events and physical symptoms will become more mainstream so that people like us can head off a major pain syndrome before it takes hold. Articles like the one you posted and the one on migraines that started this thread make perfect sense to me now.
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2scoops

USA
386 Posts

Posted - 06/21/2010 :  22:04:16  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
I actually got the article from Henry's newsletter that I signed up for. You can sign up on their website. I do have his book, and enjoyed reading it. I believe he also does a live internet show every Thurs at 8 p.m, eastern time.

Here is another good article.

"Some people spend their life trying to make everyone else happy and make no allowance for weakness or failure. They think to admit weakness or failure would mean they failed. But that's a form of entrapment where our value is based on how good we are and how well we do it. There's no allowance for weakness or failure because that might mean we won't be loved or accepted if we didn't handle something perfectly.

Look in your family tree for that feeling of inadequacy. Look for the tendency to cover it up with doing right things and good deeds. Release yourself from the possibility of inherited iniquity of performance and perfectionism in order to hide weakness."

Though the righteous fall seven times, he shall rise again. Part of being able to be spiritual humans is we have to make a provision for weakness and failure and we must let our children be prepared that when they fail they do not feel like they're a failure.

On your journey remember, you're just a guy or just a gal, aren't you? You're not God, are you? You may not understand everything, but you can recognize Fear working in your life. You can say no to Fear and you can choose to trust God. "
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Wavy Soul

USA
779 Posts

Posted - 06/25/2010 :  13:57:34  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
I just speed-read some of Henry Wright's book (the pastor who is quoted above about fibro and about fear). It's very difficult to read because there is that fundamentalist overlay (takes da fun out of da mental!). Yet also deep truths in there.

And it has deepened my exploration of the father wound, and of how to reconnect with an inner Father energy to heal myself. I've blogged about it on my blog under the title FATHERwave, fibromyalgia and Physics. The address (which you have to take spaces out of) is www. iWaveblog.blogspot. com

Basically I'm getting that my emotional body feels so deeply father-abandoned that it just keeps screaming. I've been with lovely men, who have tried to help me heal this wound, but ultimately it's an inside, spiritual job.

Love is the answer, whatever the question
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