Stress can cause a lot of problems. It releases cortisol and adrenaline in your body to increase your BP and lower your immune systems thus causing flares in Lupus. It causes the fight or flight response!

Stress exacerbates lupus activity. We are warned to avoid stress at all costs. In many of the members' stories I have read, lupus was diagnosed as a result of a stressful event. For example, I was in a car accident after falling asleep at the wheel when I left work early due to fatigue. A dermatologist already suspected SLE but when inflammation went crazy in my body that day, lupus entered my life and changed it entirely.

So I suffer from lupus, chf, multiple heart attacks, cardiomyopothy, syncope, seizures, cronic pain, and the list goes on. 2 years ago I had quintuple bypass, had an icd placed, part of my thyroid removed, and currently need to have 3 more surgeries completed. This past September I had to have 4 stints placed, because my bypass surgery failed. At the end of October I was hospitalized because my blood pressure was out of control. During the visit I fainted and had another seizure, so then I was moved to the pcu and received another eeg. Towards the end of the eeg, I ended up in a stroke protacal. From there I had to wait 2 days for an mri. I finally was discharged on a Wednesday I was back in the er because of my blood pressure, and the told me that there was nothing they could do, and told me to go to a hospital to where my regular doctors could treat me. I then had an appointment with my pcp. She made a change to my medication, and before I got out of her office I had another syncopede episode. It was then found in the past 7 days I had another heart attack. I spent another 3 days in the hospital. Since then I have had 1-2 seizures a week, 1-2 syncope episodes daily.

All i want to do is go back to work. How do I control stress when I have been through this?

Jesus hear Frankie's sincere prayer. We as your children sometimes stress about things we have no control over. But as our earthly parents children from 0-10 I don't recall worrying about anything. I don't remember worrying about any other needs or desires, I just trusted that my parents would provide. As I got older I heard them have concerns but they still made away and I trusted that they would because of what they had done in the past. Help Frankie to have a flashback of past blessings. Scientifically, they say 90% of the things we worry about never happens. So what do we do with the 10% the thing that Frankie asked pray.