"How Does Stress Affect the Immune System?"

When I was much younger, I was told or rather heard that having sores (they are called cold sores) shown in the picture below (around the mouth) was the outward manifestation of a terrible headache( in my region they are called “umutwe” which translates literally to “head” but in this context “headache”). So people would usually present with those when they had terrible headaches usually due to being stressed out by one thing or another. Somehow it is true but not really and let us look at why.

These lesions are actually caused by an infection by the herpes simplex virus which is one of the most common viral infections. In this image the sores are around the mouth so it is called Labial herpes , it can be other regions too like the genitals in that case it is called genital herpes.

So what happens is when the labial herpes virus infects and your immunity is high (in this case we say you have enough of white blood cells etc. ) .Our smart guy does not attack he goes and hide in the nerve roots at the base of your cranium(head or skull). This is one of the most nice places it can use as a safehouse while laying low because the immune cells cannot attack it without considerable collateral damage to the body , so the police will just hang around without invading the space. This can go on for many months or even years.

But what happens when you are stressed( chased by that big dog, when you fear your team will lose, exams are around the corner and you have to cram everything in three days)?

In these moments of stress we can say our police gets distracted( they are actually distracted by the body itself) and the virus sensing the opportunity emerges from its pod, rushes to the mouth and attacks. The headache is actually due to the herpes actively attacking your mouth and among other symptoms you get the sores around the mouth. The symptoms will disappear once the immune system is up and running again. Which makes take common painkillers like paracetamol not bad at all.

When you are stressed the adrenal glands( small chunks of meat on top of your kidneys) release epinephrine and norepinephrine AKA adrenaline and noradrenaline AKA the flight and/or fight( if you have the power to fight anyway) hormones. These help you deal with the situation immediately( dilate your airways, increase your blood pressure, respiratory rate and heart rate) but it doesn't end there, this eventually to the production of stress hormones (after a while ,it is a longer route) chiefly the hormone Cortisol equally produced by our friends the adrenal glands. Cortisol among other things end up dampening the immune system( reducing the surveillance and security ). This is because if the immune system is left alone to start harassing the virus there will be collateral damage( feeling sick, inflammation). So in the event of stress that will not be so helpful as the body is already battling other things.

So let us keep our stress in check. This process is also affected by sleep, tell me if you’re interested and I can equally write about it.

Information in this article is from the book: An elegant Defense and other medical sources

This article is only for information purposes.

@Chungamu