Dear “a grieving mother”,
I am sorry to hear of the death of your precious daughter. The devastating experience of the death of a child is a life long experience that we all respond to and deal with differently. You question if your husband?s chest pain, GI upset etc can be the result of delayed grief or PTSD. To answer that question one must always obtain a thorough diagnostic workup to determine what if any organic disease is causing the symptoms. Since this resulted in no pathology to explain his symptoms, then it is important to look at other possibilities. Stress has been proven to impact the body in numerous and unusual ways, and of course grief is one of the greatest stressors of all. Research has shown that stressful life events are associated with a range of medical symptoms that have no identified pathology. The only way to know for certain is to seek the consultation of a psychologist or other support mechanism to explore any possible grief related issues. It is possible that the current move etc. is compounding the grief and also creating other ambivalent feelings of which he is unaware. It is worth the effort to explore any and all avenues for finding relief from those troubling symptoms.
Dr. Coralease Cox Ruff