Stress do you think it was a factor in getting BC?

In one word, yes.

I'll second that Brenda, yes, yes.

For sure! We had just spent 6 months prior to my bc disgnosis driving back and forth to the Gold Coast and south side brissy as my husbands brother had had a quad bike accident in oct 2015 no helmet, had been drinking slammed his head into a tree which left him with a traumatic brain injury. He got out of hospital April last year then I was diagnosed in may last year . And I actually postponed my annual mammogram which was due in January last year (I had really lumpy cysty breasts hence the yearly checks) due to trying to work and all the driving to see him. It was really really stressful and had I done that mammogram in Jan who knows maybe my diagnosis and treatment could of been different. And was the stress a factor.... I certainly believe it could of been for sure. As I had no family history either. Anyway these days I stress still but not as much and I deal with it a lot differently too.... Margie xx

Just briefly had glandular fever when I was 14, Chronic fatigue between 2009 and just coming out of it in February 2013 then diagnosed with Metastatic breast cancer in June, I had early ovarian cancer at age 29,{1984} surgery and radioactive phosphorous, then a vaginal hysterectomy, 2 years on the IVF programme, marriage breakdown, and the list goes on, I truly believe that chronic stress was a contributing factor for most of the illness"s that I have had over my lifetime, thankfully now after learning various strategies which have taken a long time to put in to place STRESS is now out of my life I , I have been very fortunate to have had fantastic doctors all along the way, but it has taken many years to work everything out and put everything in its place, my head is in a good space now, I do have the odd day when I struggle to keep on top of things but am very grateful for what I do have,life is challenging at the best of times, never mind throw in metastatic breast cancer, however I truly believe that I can now cope with anything!!! My own mother passed away from Non Hodgkins Lymphoma, and again I believe that chronic stress over many many years was a contributing factor,we women have so much to deal with over our lifetimes, and we manage very well, however it does take a toll on our physical and mental health and I believe that my immune system became so compromised that I was a disaster waiting to happen and along came breast cancer, I could not believe it!!!, however everyday is a gift to me , I have built a house  for my son, have seen my grandaughter turn 16, make her debut, my son get married, and have so much to look forward to, I dont think about my prognosis, in fact my oncologist has not given me one and has said he doesnt intend to!!
Wendy55

@wendy55 well you certainly have been through the mill! 
Your post suggests you have never lost your sense of well being and have managed to combat some of the biggest stresses of all.  As to dignity well that's a little different, as we have to flash our chest, spread our legs, all in the cause of our health!  Oh goodness my last trip to the Gynaecology Oncologist I was on the table in the nud (bottom half) trying to negotiate my way out of my examination..............didn't work but he was extremely gentle with me.  It's the pride and dignity that takes a real knock in our circumstances, doesn't it!
Pleased to read in your post that you say "everyday is a gift to me"..............wonderful!
Take care, sending you a virtual hug xx

From what I gather, much research has been done regarding stress and cancer, as well as stress and auto immune diseases, and thus immunity as a whole. The concensus seems to be no. Much of the links, (according to the researchers) is anecdotal and so not proved by this, that and the next study. The links do not seem to be direct. I guess one could say that ninety percent of unwed girls who fell pregnant in the 1970's often wore blue jeans, and so ipso facto, the blue jeans were responsible. Not so, obviously, it was just that a lot of girls who happened to be sexually active, wore them. I think that we modern women (and men too), live with a huge amount of stress. Most of us are diagnosed with cancer later rather than earlier, and I think that for most of us, by the time we hit forty, have had some major stress event in our lives. How would you calibrate stress?  A years or decades long low level grumble of stress, versus a stress free life then rudely interrupted by a major stress event? Which trumps which? In my case, shitloads of both, and I have three distinct autoimmune diseases, and cancer. Was it the five years in a children's home from a baby, the seventeen schools I was dragged around when my mother remarried. Was it my stepfather (we won't even go there!!!). Was it a forced adoption forty two years ago, and the deep trauma that I've lived with each and every day? Was it the sudden death of my beloved brother in '96? Was it out families move to the other side of the world (here). Was it nursing my MIL through terminal bowel cancer? Was it my husband having a catastrophic heart attack in the car ten years ago? (He survived, yet another story).Who knows...if so which one or combination of which and when was it triggered? In childhood, where it incubated in some dark corner, only to emerge in middle age? If so, why the hell then? I'd taken on the world with the shitfest I was dealt with, and did it with the mid finger salute. I had survived all before, with a certain level of panache, then this whole rude awakening. I had thought someone would have had to bash me over the head with a hammer to kill me off, then lo and behold, my TITS decided to try and take on the job!!! Well I showed them!! Stress....bring it on...I stare it in the eye, then tell it to F..K off.

To me it sounds like a lot of us girls have had quite a large degree of stress before diagnosis.
I guess the only way to measure stress is the same way the medical profession measures pain. On a scale of 1 to 10.......

Zoffiel said:

Stress just isn't  that easy to quantify, is it? I'm constantly amazed by how much some people can survive and also how differently people react.

 

I was lying on the floor at the end of my yoga class today surrounded by people who seem to be able to shut down and switch off. Me? Nah. 

@Zoffiel

touché

I've decided that relaxing yoga doesn't cut it - some are into it - I guess I have too many cogs turning!

Like everyone else, I have opinions but not so many facts. I think we can reasonably say that smoking heightens your chances of cancer, but if my grandfather is anything to go by, doesn't always cause it (decades of pipe smoking - lived to 93 - could have had lung, throat, mouth cancer but died as his heart stopped of old age). Alcohol, other carcinogens and stress may also be contributing factors, but again not causes in themselves.  We do know that cancer cells are opportunistic, metastasise and are not so easy to kill as we would like. So seems reasonable to me that the factors that lead one person to get cancer and another not to aren't one cause, but the hard to predict result of multiple contributing factors. What we can say is stress isn't good for us in general terms. Unfortunately it can take something like cancer to make some of us really accept that. I haven't  had a history of terrible things to bear, far from it, a very fortunate life, but it took me to post cancer counseling to realise that my idea of a normal pace of life was far from normal!!  But every lesson learned is worthwhile, whenever it happens. As is every extra year.