Episode 3: Stress & Trauma, with Dr. Aimie Apigian

The Super Health Human Podcast, with Dr. Rodger Murphree

Most of us can handle the ups and downs of our daily lives, even the occasional catastrophe. We dig in our heels, persevere, and eventually learn to cope. “Stress” is experienced when a person perceives that the demands made upon her exceed the mental, physical, personal, or social resources she is able to mobilize.
Some individuals have an altered stress-coping system, which prevents them from managing daily stress. For example, studies suggest that cumulative effects of physical, mental, chemical, or emotional burdens in early childhood disrupt normal homeostatic stress-coping abilities, thus making them more susceptible to the effects of stress – and illness – later in life. (A possible reason for this is an overstimulation or dysfunction of the HPA axis in the brain, which is discussed in detail below.) In fact, retrospective studies show that people who have been emotionally, physically, or sexually abused as children are at great risk of developing certain symptoms, including many associated with FMS.

As they get older, have more responsibilities, and experience an increase in their daily stress, they often find their health beginning to suffer. They may start to have bouts of anxiety and depression, or perhaps they’re just tired all the time. They become extremely vulnerable to major stressors: going off to college, starting a new demanding job, the death of a loved one, chronic illness, invasive surgery, physical trauma, et cetera. Like a ticking time bomb, it’s only a matter of time before they explode. This is especially true for those who have a genetic predisposition to suffer the ill effects of daily stress, for example, reduced levels of serotonin – the hormone that regulates mood. Sadly, I find that many of my FMS patients have experienced at least one form of abuse as a child. Of course, the stress doesn’t have to begin in childhood in order to seriously impact our health. For example, physical or emotional abuse from a partner or spouse creates a stressful situation that, over time, depletes their stress-coping chemicals and lead to a state of disease. The symptoms of fatigue, pain, poor sleep, poor digestion, irregular bowel movements, mental confusion, poor memory, anxiety, and depression are all warning signs that these chemicals (including vitamins, minerals, amino acids, essential fatty acids, and hormones) have become deficient. These deficiencies then complicate one another until the body’s homeostatic mechanism and HPA axis become dysfunctional. The straw that breaks the camel’s back may come after years of a stressful marriage, work environment, illness, financial challenges, or from a sudden traumatic event like a surgery, death of a loved one, or physical and or mental trauma. Once broken, the body isn’t able to right itself. Chronic poor health becomes the norm.

About My Podcast Guest: Dr. Aimie Apigian, MD, MS, MPH, is a Board-Certified Preventive Medicine physician with a Masters in Biochemistry and a Masters in Public Health.

She is an author, speaker and founder of Trauma Healing Accelerated, LLC and Family Challenge Camps, and host of Bio-Optimize Summit.