top of page
Writer's pictureBrittany Murray

The Role of Trauma in Autoimmune Disease

Updated: Nov 3

2024 Autoimmune Community Summit Session Recap


At the 2024 Autoimmune Community Summit, Dr. Veronique Mead, explained the role of trauma in autoimmune disease. This has been a hot topic for anyone with chronic pain or disease who sees a therapist. Everyone I know in therapy with a chronic disease has been offered the book The Body Keeps Score to help them understand that your body keeps track of everything happening in your life and often knows something is wrong before your brain does. Being aware of all of the risk factors associated with trauma and how your body responds to it can be a huge advantage, but I am getting ahead of myself, trauma is not the only environmental factor that can impact your health. Your environment is 70-90% responsible for triggering your autoimmune disease which means your genes are only 10-30% responsible. Things like infections, stress, trauma and toxins are all possible triggers. Technically the disease is always there but the development of the disease can sometimes take years before you see symptoms. With each environmental event like the flu, loss of a family member, or job stress your body is keeping track and can progress your disease. Are you counting up these events? I know I was when I heard this. 


All of these little events like the flu can impact or trigger your disease but let's focus on trauma. Childhood trauma is directly tied to your risk of developing an autoimmune disease. Your risk can be calculated by how many Adverse Childhood Experiences or ACEs you have. Research has shown that the more ACEs you have the higher your risk of autoimmune disease is but that even 2 ACEs puts you at risk.


There are ten types of events that are considered ACEs: 

  1. loss of a parent

  2. parental mental illness

  3. physical abuse

  4. sexual abuse

  5. emotional abuse

  6. physical neglect

  7. emotional neglect

  8. domestic violence

  9. substance abuse

  10. incarceration


Even traumatic events that happen before birth like preeclampsia or c-section put you at risk due to early separation of mom and baby and the added stress. With these events, children are more likely to develop insulin resistance which is common in autoimmune diseases like RA and Psoriasis. Trauma goes so deep that even a mothers drama has shown to impact their child’s disease well after birth. Asthma is another condition that often accompanies autoimmune disease. Children with asthma have experience 3 times more nonbonding events with their mother than children without asthma.  A study was done for a child with asthma where they actually treated the mother for not feeling love for the child and treated the events that led up to that and the asthma resolved.


Another study showed that when we started delivering babies in hospitals and separating the baby from the mom it caused bonding disruptions, less connection from mother to child, more postpartum depression, more colic, and more trouble breastfeeding.


To sum it up:

  • life experiences influence biology, antibodies and gene function

  • trauma in your life can trigger autoimmune disease and lead to flares 

  • Treating your trauma can help your disease and your children's

  • Use the handouts below to learn more about the connection between autoimmune disease and trauma


Citations:



Комментарии


bottom of page