The Challenge of Understanding What Triggers MG

Since my myasthenia gravis (MG) first manifested 4 years ago, I’ve tried to wrap my head around how it started, and since then, what repeatedly causes my flare-ups or exacerbations.

This article highlights my approach in using what I’ve learned so far about triggers to better prepare myself for my inevitable future flare-ups and maybe avoid some of them.

MG is unpredictable and life-alterting

For some reason that I’ve yet to find explained, most of us aren’t born with MG, but rather show our initial symptoms suddenly. And for many of us, the onset or worsening of our symptoms may be due to one of many possible triggers.

The abrupt and unexpected onset of my MG became the single most life-altering event in my life. I now had new and powerful emotions taking control and affecting my ability to manage my activities, plans, and relationships that I had previously spent my life creating and maintaining.

Suddenly triggers became a new and unpredictable facet of living. Feelings of anxiety and depression from losing control overwhelmed me and caught me unprepared. What is this condition that no one I know has heard of? What should I do? Why doesn’t my doctor know how to help me? Am I on my own here?

I wondered what triggered my MG

What triggered my MG’s onset and why am I getting these repeated flare ups? I realized I must learn everything I can about this rare condition and its triggers if I’m going to keep myself from falling into a mental rabbit hole.

Many people with MG are confident about what caused their initial symptoms. For example, certain medications or vaccines, a period of intense emotional turmoil, overexertion, exposure to chemicals, surgery, another disease, and so on.¹

The underlying common factor I notice here is that each of these can cause stress to the body. Through my own research, I discovered that some kinds of stresses to the body can directly affect the immune system. Perhaps these factors possibly triggered the onset of my MG. If so, is the key factor minimizing stress to my body? That's something I can learn about or focus on!²

The impact of stress

I think the stress of a shingles vaccine that was composed of a live virus triggered the onset of my MG. I had subsequently found live-virus vaccines listed as an MG cautionary drug and thus came to that conclusion since my first symptoms appeared days after receiving the vaccine.³

But now I think that some other strong stress to my body could just as well have done the same thing at the same time, given the opportunity. In other words, it was the stress caused by the vaccine, not the vaccine itself, that was the trigger.

Why knowing your triggers matters

I regularly follow online MG support group forums and pay close attention to individuals’ descriptions about triggers of their MG symptoms. Everything I hear supports the conclusions I’ve reached so far. Occasionally I’ll hear someone mention one of their triggers and I realize that, oh yeah, that activity or situation or drug might have been my trigger for a particular previous flare-up, so maybe I should remember that!

I’m increasingly confident that understanding MG triggers in general and learning what my individual triggers are can make managing MG significantly less difficult. This increased the confidence I’ve gained in controlling my flare-ups and has improved my mental well-being. And, by lowering my anxiety and depression, I also lower the stress even more.

Have you learned what some of your triggers are and how to avoid them? Feel free to let us know in the comments.