Stress?

    My body has changed the way it deals with stress. I find this quite interesting, in a clinical sense. I used to be a stress eater. Yes, I would exercise hard when stressed, but then I would eat to make up for it. And my past preferred workouts were usually hard weight lifting, or heavy bag, not much real cardio. I would take my dogs out on long, late night walks in all sorts of weather. Often raging into the storm at the newest hurdle or kick in the teeth. But a lot of this has changed.
    I have developed what I think of as a "nervous stomach." Now when I stress my stomach actually cramps up, and I feel nausea and pain, which very effectively kills my appetite. At times like that, I force myself to eat, knowing that my current training regiment cannot be sustained without proper nutrition. So I have learned to force feed myself nutritious food, fuel for the engine. None the less, I have lost over 5 pounds in the last four weeks or so. Along with the nervous stomach are a whole litany of other, grosser, digestive ailments that plague me from one end to the other. I will spare you the details.
    Another oddity of this is my mouth. Half the time the inside of my mouth is sore, with my tongue feeling almost burned. I get odd tingling in my tongue, and spicy food is painful. I worry that it is some kind of immune disorder, but I am so damned healthy in most other respects. It is a puzzle. A weird puzzle.
    Strangely, my sleep is not being affected. Maybe that is because my workout regiment is kind of strenuous, and my days are full from the moment the alarm goes of until I crawl to bed at night. I am sleeping like a rock, most nights. My workouts are mostly cardio these days. Yes I still do strength training several days a week, and core and abs about every other day, but mostly I swim, cycle, and run. Okay, I am not running as much as I should, but I am trying to be delicate with my knees. Today it was stairclimbing tower laps in ankle weights and SCBA pack at the station while on lunch break from my EMR class. 25 laps X 3 flights of stairs and one roof ladder = 75+ flights of stairs. Easier on my knees than running, but a good leg workout.
    There are other weird little glitches in my system that I am laying at the feet of stress. Enough that I feel a bit like a hypochondriac. My Princess and The Pea syndrome is back in full force, the slightest bump hurts like a motherfucker, especially if it hits the joints in my hands and arms. See, just an odd shopping list of bodily chaos to ponder, and then ignore to the best of my abilities. F'king stress.