Hello everyone. I was just wondering. I've read an article (can't remember from where it was) but it was talking about an association between people who have pernicious anemia and childhood abuse and neglect. My childhood was pretty rough, (won't elaborate at this time), so naturally I related. Could just be a coincidence in my case I suppose. Anyway, I was wondering if it's just me then, or can any of you relate. I mean did anyone also experience any childhood trauma, abuse, or neglect and then went on to have PA? I am not at all saying even I believe that childhood abuse causes PA, but I'm interested to see if anyone else with PA experienced an abusive childhood. I'd rather wait to see if anyone responds before I waste any time researching this matter. Thanks and Happy New Year. MJat
Childhood Trauma and Abuse: Hello... - Pernicious Anaemi...
Childhood Trauma and Abuse
I had a very happy childhood.
OK, thank you for responding. I'm really curious to see what the responses will be. So glad your childhood was happy. God bless.
I had an unhappy childhood. My mum had bipolar disorder and I never knew where I was. One day she could be very loving the next day the complete opposite. Looking back I think she also had PA and the bipolar was caused by it.
Yes charks bipolar can be a misdiagnosis for P.A. Sorry to read about your childhood.
Same here!
Hi Mr Justatip,
I am dreadfully sorry to read about your childhood.
The mind and body are interconnected and should NOT be separated. Western Society is absolutely dreadful for doing this. In the East, it is totally different.
So, I take a keen interest in the triggers of Autoimmunity. Now, the Brain will recognise an insult (medical speak) to the body whether that is :-
Chemical, Physical, Heat, Pressure , Electrical, Emotional. At this point it does not differentiate. The brain and body react to the harm.
So, if a child is constantly on high alert from fear of being told off or hit, they will hold their body differently, be tense, not oxygenate their body properly, have high adrenaline levels which impact a stress hormone called cortisol.
So, all these biological reactions occur and overtime, these can be quite wearing. The child adapts to the situation to cope but things are also happening on a chemical and cellular level too. This can cause illness or disease because the body cannot relax properly to repair itself as it normally would.
Thank you for being honest and open and feeling like you can share with us. Emotionally healing is also part of the P.A./B12D journey which very often is forgotten about. I hope now as an adult you have good support, realise what you have overcome and have a trusted person or people you can share with. So, you can reframe what you experienced. Some people write books, journal, compose music or are drawn to that line of work to help others because they understand.
All the best.
🐳
I'm sorry your childhood was rough , I had a loving but unsettled childhood but have since early childhood been extremely anxious and struggled with mental health, I have an adult autistic son and have come to realize that I too am probably autistic but my traits are different because im female, I suspect that masking and trying to fit in for all these years would be sufficient ongoing trauma to cause PA Xx
I actually believe that there is more of a link with autism even than this, Knitfairy (lovely name)
My family have many autoimmune conditions in evidence: psoriasis, Grave's disease, vitiligo etc. All of my sisters' children have autism. Some also have autoimmune conditions to cope with as well.
I once hoped that getting my DNA tested might help others in my family, particularly the next generation. Sadly, despite being convinced that something would be discovered, nothing was even found to explain my raised MMA and ongoing B12 symptoms.
Sooner or later (probably later) a link will be found between B12 deficiency and autism, I'm sure of it.
By that time, we can also hope, there will be less focus on male-pattern traits which is sometimes a lifelong barrier to an autism diagnosis for women and girls, and yes, pushing them into a situation where attempting to fit in the only available option. Male or female, there is not much help out there currently.
So a big wish-list for 2024 ....... huge. Wish hard and wish BIG !
MrJustatip - I had a happy childhood but my parents certainly didn't, I later learned. We got the childhoods that they wanted for us; entirely invented, I'm guessing, from their own wish-lists. I can't thank them enough for that.
Your delving into this may provide useful explanations for others, and might answer some of your own questions. So much, much more to learn about. Best wishes for 2024.
Thank you so much for your reply, it really concerns me as I can trace it all back to my grandmother who had rhumatoid arthritis and struggled so much with the social side of life we're pretty sure that she was autistic, my elder son is fairly severely autistic, my 2 daughters both have traits of female autism but are so much more aware of neuro diversity and I'm hoping that being aware of burnout may help them, hope and pray that none of my children develop autoimmune diseases but I think that you're right that there is probably more of a genetic link to having autism than just a bodies response to repeatedly burning out due to masking, I do hope that a link will be found sooner rather than later 🤞
I think any stress can bring out anything you are pre-disposed to genetically.
I had a happy childhood.
I was however under alot of stress prior to my severe b12 deficiency and collapse.
Alot, alot ended up way too much for me to sustain for several years.
....and 8 can usually cope with alot.
Happy New year
An interesting point, but difficult to research I imagine, as neglect and abuse have a profound effect on so much in all aspects of health. Some Research shows that young mums who come from very low social class groups, or been Neglected/abused are more likely to get serious kidney infections in pregnancy, leading to scarring and CKD in later life, plus premature birth. Just a thought but all interesting and something lots of folk will live or have experienced sadly. Keep strong warriors x
The kidney infections do you think from sexual abuse???from any group.I found that could be the first physical sign with children.
Of course poor diet will also contribute to being more vulnerable to any illness along with working long hours or pushing our bodies too hard.
Also as a positive by observation in past work. Less isolation as more networking in poorer income areas .
Better socialised children.
More independent
More a pack mentality looking out for one another emotionally.
So a positive for mental and physical health too.
Inner stress /abuse not transparent by environment and appearance and internalised is damaging and will come out in illness of some sort eventually.
As you say, lots have sadly experienced this.
Some come out of it better than others health wise.
A good friend had a troubled childhood .
Too much was concentrated on this.
Not enough basic blood testing done .
Sent to counselling .
Given antidepressants for ? depression.Then misdiagnosed with.
Bipolar disorder .
Drugs then mask symptoms.
Now off all drugs many yesrs later.
Has finally got a diagnosis of PA .
Weekly b12 Injections 💉 has sorted out alot.
Some symptoms remain .
I still think B12 shoukd be tested on any full bloods taken.
Not even there to tick !!
Not even on their radar.
I didn’t say sexual abuse, any abuse may cause physical or emotional trauma, directly or indirectly affecting many health issues. I personally don’t think we are in the right forum to overthink this topic, as things may be misconstrued and its about supporting people. People suffer from CKD having lived happily and well too thank goodness x
No you didn't. I did.
Wasn't over thinking.just stating another form of abuse linked to poor health outcomes.
I think you posting has brought many many replies .
Where support csn be given to one another .
Many many causes for this horrible condition.
Thank you
I am so sorry to learn of your friend ‘Has finally got a diagnosis of PA’. You are quite right Nackapan when you write, Not enough basic blood testing done.
Steam is coming out of my ears and my blood is boiling. Your friend’s quality of life has been poor because they just did not even bother to check. That is just incompetence.
I recently read that adverse childhood events are common to 80% of people with chronic migraine. I have had that too as well as PA. I thought my childhood was happy but recent counselling has shown maybe it wasn’t! I’m sure there’s something in it. Healing required on all levels!
Yes.
The term ;
Good enough parents comes to mind.
Then a child learns to take responsibility for some of their well being.
The other term;
'Nanny state '
Is unhealthy too.
All a balancing act as life is !
I had a very traumatic childhood but I think ongoing stress causes inflammation in the whole body which brings about disease if any description. I know there was a study done a while back on fibromyalgia which did have links to trauma.
I am sorry to read.
You are correct Parlay with inflammation. The Immune System is complex and some people are conditioned to ‘keep going’ or push through or do stuff to fit in with peers or society.
I was always a weird, quirky kid. My parents have no idea of what I actually got up to because I was super quiet and self-sufficient. When they were out I nearly blew up the microwave, took electric stuff apart, cremated a mercury thermometer. I played in woods and would start fires. I was just curious, imaginative, independent and I love daydreaming. Maybe, my mother will realise in time. People have very strange perceptions because of their own experiences. Now, in Psychology, that is called projection.
😘
I also had a very traumatic childhood and have multiple health issues including PA. Perlonged stress and also not learning how to care for self or nurture oneself properly. I neglected my health really badly with out realising it as a young adult.
im so sorry you experienced this but yes i did too so possibly there could be a connection. Wishing you all the very best and sending you lots of healing ❤️🌈🦋
I had “good enough” parents (that’s a psychological term) but I had a lot of trauma from school from having undiagnosed ADHD/being neurodivergent and being misunderstood. Which has made me think about correlation not always being causation. For example, whilst I’ve not heard of a PA link, vitamin deficiencies and gut issues are common for neurodivergent people, as is an increased risk of finding “normal” things in childhood (such as school) to be traumatic.
Also B12 deficiency can cause psychological symptoms and it’s easy to see how familial B12 deficiency could make it harder to parent, even to the degree of abuse or neglect in some cases (CERTAINLY not all in case anyone thinks I’m suggesting that). My dad had early onset frontal temporal dementia, which I now think was undiagnosed PA. 😕 He was definitely a distant and irritable parent and became more so in the 10 years before the dementia was obvious. Also right before my first lots of B12 injections, the increased irritation I had with my own kids had become noticeably not how I normally parent. Thankfully the worst of it only lasted a few months but had that investigation process not already been started, who knows how long it might have lasted? 😕
I'd never made a connection, but yes, a high degree of mainly verbal abuse from a very selfish bully of a father.
hi all .. very interested to read this.. I had a traumatic childhood, and have confirmed diagnosis of pernicious anemia.. I’ve found that my health has suffered a lot in the last 5/6 years.. anxiety and stress as well as many many symptoms relating to p.a .. I would not be surprised if fibromyalgia is my next diagnosis as I’m now suffering all the symptoms.. I also have multiple vitamin deficiencies.. as well as confirmed chronic atrophy gastritis .. I think a lot of the gastrointestinal symptoms are related to trauma !! Really interested to read this feed
Happy new year to you all .. I’m hoping for a healthier year this year ( we can all hope ) xx
Hi I am new to this forum, recently told I have a functional B12 defeciency serum B12 was normal but active B12 low.. Massive range of severe symptoms past 2 years. Started EOD injections 4 weeks ago. Being investigated for PA. I had a very traumatic childhood mother was a psychopath dad had another wife and family. Won't say any more than that. Developed psoriasis age 5 which I believed was. Trauma related. Then psoriatic arthritis now probable PA.
Dr. Gabor Maté has an entire you tube channel about trauma, stress and Auto immune conditions. I highly recommend anybody Google him on YouTube. He's a brilliant doctor, and has survived extreme trauma himself. I can join the ranks of the unfortunately abused and traumatized.. All the way up to the age of 55 years old. That's when I escaped my abusive family and traumatic past. Finding peace and happiness really helps the healing process. My Christmas was very sad and draining. I can tell you that I needed more B12 over the holidays and that all the crying and sadness really drained me. And I needed extra b12 because of it. So stress and sadness and trauma definitely cause dis-ease in the mind, body and soul .
Everyone knows that when you laugh, it makes you feel good and when you cry it makes you feel terrible. It's only logical to assume that stress and sadness and trauma cause disease, and happiness helps to heal.
Wishing everyone a happy healing new year. Do whatever you can to smile and laugh and find the happiness you need to feel well. 🥰
I found Gabor Matt's work to be helpful. I am on the other side of the fence with crying. I cry a lot and it's one of my life skills that I value.
I'm sorry you cry a lot. I cry a lot too. I didn't use to. It's too bad we have so many things to cry about. This year, my goal is to find things to laugh at laugh about. That is my goal this year. 2024, The year of happiness 😊
Why are you sorry that I cry and grieve and put things in my past rather than living with them.Sometimes I need to be sad so that I can be happy. One of my most important life skills.
No, I'm not sorry that you do that. At all. I'm sorry that we had so many things to cry about.
That resonates! Fate is fate.
I am a victim (survivor?) of child abuse, that carried on all my life until about 10 years ago when my mother was put in a home.
Trigger warning!
I was poisoned, starved, beaten and generally neglected. I was constantly ill with one thing or another and never taken to a doctor, unless someone outside the family told my mother to call the doctor. I'm pretty sure 99% of my issues are a result of the abuse.
My heart goes out to you! I hope you found a way to move forward and find peace and happiness in your life. Know that what your mother did to you was about her and her hatred for herself and probably mental illness. And not anything you did! I am sending warm hugs and just to say, how brave you are. 🦋🫂 I hope you have people around you now especially doctors that believe in you and are helping you. Be kind to yourself, you deserve it.
Thank you.
My mother had narcissistic personality disorder and therefore an overinflated ego. She didn't hate herself, she hated me for A being born, and B being born female.
She tried to kill me, she tried to have me taken into care, or an institution, at one point she tried to force me to become a nun!!
When she couldn't stop me talking to people, she launched a pre-emptive strike claiming "Saoirse's not right in the head", "Saoirse hates me and thinks I'm a terrible mother", and "Saoirse is not sick, she's lazy, she was in hospital and they proved there was nothing wrong with her"
No one in my family speaks to me, aside from one brother who texts me every so often to ask if I got the money from mother's bank account (she died in 2019). There is no money in her bank account due to that brother fecking up the paperwork for mother's nursing home fees. She's been bankrupt since 2016. But still he texts and asks and I'm sick of repeating myself.
My other brother has accused me of stealing a six figure sum of money from our Dad (who died in 2010), he's turned dozens of family and so-called friends against me. He was unable to say how Dad had a six figure sum of money, and no one has asked him why he hasn't gone to the Gardai over the supposed theft of his (the brother's) inheritance.
Most of the people in the village I live in hate me because of my mother slandering me, and now my brother slandering me. Not one of the morons has ever questioned the BS they both spout.
I'm nearly 60 now, and I've never known a life of safety or peace, and never will. I'm essentially homeless, and definitely penniless. I need a lawyer, and no one will represent me because there's no money in it for them. At some point in the not too distant future I'll have to vacate the house as it won't be fit for human habitation any more (I inherited the house, but mother saw to it that it's in a state or disrepair, and since there's no money left, I cannot afford to fix anything - the house is worth nothing, and not worth selling). I'll just have to keep suffering until I shuffle off this mortal coil.
I'm sorry to hear about the life you've had to lead.
You must be strong to have survived
I'm really hoping change is possible and help comes from somewhere.
I have been directly asking for help for 30 years, been ignored at every turn ("Saoirse's not right in the head"), and indirectly asking for help for a lot longer.
Mother showed her violent temper more than once in front of people who should have reported her to the authorities, but for some reason they all shrugged it off.
My so-called best friend said I could share a house with her, then suddenly turned around and told me her ex husband was moving back in with her. She back peddled and said she'd not spoken to him, but she had a feeling he wanted to move back in. I've not spoken to her for 3 years, but a quick glance at her FB - there's no sign whatsoever that her ex moved back in with her.
Change will only come when people start listening to, and believing me, and not the lies/slander. Whilst mother was in a care home she was abusing the staff, but it was dismissed as her having dementia. She did not have dementia, but as usual no one will listen to me.
It's completely hopeless.
I am really very sorry for all that you have been through. nobody should have to go through anything like that.
My mother is a narcissist as well and was even diagnosed as a malignant narcissist. But she never did anything that bad to me. She did destroy my life. And gaslight me for most of my life. I haven't spoken to her in 6 years and pretty much everyone in my family. I'll exchange a text with my dad from time to time. And my youngest sister but other than that it's just me.
I heard a quote not too long ago that I really like:
"I would rather adjust my life to your absence, then adjust my boundaries to your disrespect."
You've overcome some terrible, terrible things. I just can't imagine what makes somebody be that way.
I wish you a peaceful rest of your life. 🦋
Which organization has the smallest number of members? Adult Children of Normal Parents 😀
With trauma, the body produces responses which re-jig its resources, priorities and functions. Ptsd is when a person is in some way stuck in a trauma response. This is not the optimal state for long term health - breathing, heartrate, hormones, gut function, cognition can all be affected. Its not unreasonable to think trauma might use up stored b12, or need more than expected.
If trauma causes pa, i think it would be more obvious - for example you might expect a slight skew in occurence of pa among children who grew up in N Ireland in the 80s and 90s compared to those in Wales or ROI.
What I do feel should happen is that mental health therapists encourage to test for b12 as part of their initial assessment.
I have ptsd and pa, it took a LONG time to figure that out. Thankfully I did - you can't talk yourself out of b12 symptoms.
I have found somatic therapy to be very helpful for ptsd in the past.
this is a very good question. I love how you think.
I had childhood and adult trauma but I don't think it had anything to do with my b12 deficiency or my severe insulin resistance which I have had since childhood that got undiagnosed. I believe in my case mine is purely genetics.
I believe that I have had an issue with b12 at a more minor degree when I was young and it reared its head later as in 11 years ago. I'm now 51.
That being said I absolutely won't discount that viruses and trauma can modify DNA and cause anomies. I am a big believer here.
So my eyes and ears are still open on this topic!
I do wish there was a way to get genetic testing. I watched one documentary where a girl from the US went to Italy to get genetically tested after narrowing down what she wanted tested. It was free and sure enough they diagnosed a rare disease.
I think if there were to be an innovation to modern medicine part of it would be genetic testing while keeping insurance out of it entirely to protect people. I digress.
Again, not even remotely doubting the possibility, , I'm curious what they had as evidence?
The answer won't convince me it's not possible but may convince me that it is likely a possible cause.
I had a ruff childhood and was a sickly kid. Although I have 3 siblings none of which have PA.
I have been surrounded my entire life by narcissists. Parent, spouse, workplace, one of my own children and “friends”. I don’t know if it had anything to do with my pernicious anemia. I came hours close to death in my 20’s. I continue to deal with many health issues I know the emotional abuse had directly caused.
happy new year from England everyone.
I can relate to the dreadful childhood and beyond. One of 8 thrown out at fifteen to make room for the others. Slept in a greenhouse. Met this wealthy man who beat me for 10byears till I nearly died. Met and married an amazing man afterwards and I’m now Patron of a charity that helps women like I was to get a better life.
Big stomach operation due to being continually kicked in it led to pernicious anaemia and other illnesses.
Being without B12 due to a new doctor I’ve been so poorly for five years until injections started aagain so hopefully back on the right track to coping.
I have a claim going through against him for putting me straight back to where I started without injections over 40 years ago. I will let you know if this claim is successful or not.
Sorry to go on when it should be a happy time.
Sending very best wishes to all of you and thank you for being there x
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thank you for this it’s very kind
Hi there if you do some research I believe any trauma may cause autoimmune condition’s especially something like fibromyalgia?
I was sexually abused. Just once and after telling my older sister never spoke if again until I told my 2nd husband But I was always told that I was a mistake by my mother and wasn't wanted
So not actual physical but mental
Yes, I too can relate to the sexual and mental abuse. I was six when sexually attacked by two older boys who were my mother's friends' kids. I now know that my mother was a narcissist.
I had an immensely difficult childhood and adolescent relationship with my mother which led me to have a burst peptic ulcer at the age of 17 in 1959.
Of course it is more likely that the emergency removal of two thirds of my stomach led to my eventual diagnosis of P.A so maybe that is where the analogy "breaks down" that the things in my upbringing led to the other.
I wish you well
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