I hope not because you bring up some very valid issues here and they should be discussed on the board.  Marraige breakdowns happen for parents with kids with CAH too and sadly it seems that it can be used in a way that stops a parent spending time with their child.  I did lay a message down before in response---in fact three in total.  I am sorry but they appear to have poofed and I more or less outlined that I was sorry that this has happened to you and my beliefs on physical stress also.  I cut and pasted this article for you to read.  Then later in another post I said that "stress" could be caused not by being with one parent or the other but rather the fact that there is tension when Mom and Dad do the exchange.  Believe me, I have experience in this in the past from family and my own.  Also a child is not in control of what is happening around him and can feel quite sad and stressed.  As for physical excercise I beleive that the ones that you mention would be ok.  My son was forced to do a 15 minute cross country run though when he was undersuppressed and this causes problems.  I guess it depends on the good control of the childs condition.  I think that you both should be active in decisions about Triton's health and I am sorry that this has happened to you.  Always it is the child that comes out the worst in these situations and I supposed that could be one argument back in the face of what has happened to you here.  Especially so with a child with CAH.  He is going to be just as affected if not more not seeing you as what he would when its time to leave and go back home to Mom.  Not because he doesn't want to go home but because if he had the choice he would choose both of you together and everything hunkidory again.  These things improve with time but usually take years sadly.  Here is that abstract again for you:

When God created human beings, He knew there would be times when we would meet danger and our bodies would need to react quickly so we could get to safety. So He gave each of us a hypothalamus gland. The hypothalamus, located in the brain, is very important— as it’s primary purpose is maintaining homeostasis, in other words, it maintains an internal stability . It is incredibly sensitive to the psychological and spiritual state of your body. When you’re at peace walking down a nature trail, the hypothalamus senses that peace, but the second you turn around the bend and come face to face with a mother grizzly bear growling at you, the hypothalamus senses the fear and goes into action. The hypothalamus doesn’t know why you’re scared as it doesn’t think for itself, it is only a gland. It only knows that you are scared out of your wits, so there must be some danger.

The hypothalamus has the job of transferring thought into chemistry. It does this by secreting the hormone, CRF, which causes a chain reaction of over 20 other hormones, and neurotransmitters to be released throughout the body. For instance, when the hypothalamus senses stress, fear and anxiety, it releases CRF. When the Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS) receives the CRF, it releases a hormone called norepinephrine and at the same time it stimulates a gland called the Adrenal Medulla to release epinephrine (adrenaline). These hormones alone effect just about every organ system of the body, for instance they cause your heart rate, blood pressure, blood sugar, blood fats, cholesterol in your blood and your metabolic rate to increase. At the same time muscular fatigue is delayed, blood supply to the bladder and intestines is reduced and their muscular walls relax. But that isn’t all, your digestive juice output, carbohydrate production, breakdown of cholesterol, and insulin production all decrease. They also cause the sphincters to contract (muscles that assist you in having a bowel movement). While epinephrine and norepinephrine are busy effecting the body, another gland, the Adrenal cortex, releases the hormone Cortisol (also known as hydrocortisone). Cortisol effects many areas of the body, such as the liver, digestive system, muscles, skin and bones, protein production, heart, blood levels of amino acids and it suppresses the immune system.

Imagine dozens of hormones and neurotransmitters all being released into the body and effecting pretty much all parts of the body in different ways every time your hypothalamus senses you are afraid.

If what you are afraid of is a charging grizzly bear, these reactions are beneficial as you frantically climb the nearest tree. If on the other hand, you are constantly stressed, frequently anxious, and have lots of fears, this biological process never stops, homeostasis never returns and the process can become fatal.

The Flight or Fight Stage is immediate, allowing us the needed energy to climb that tree. But when the fear is within, we soon enter the Resistance Stage— long term our bodies are geared up for stress (fear and anxiety). When this continues for very long, a few of the diseases or conditions a doctor may diagnose the individual with include; coronary artery disease, high blood pressure, stroke, irregular heartbeat, backache, tension headaches, rheumatoid arthritis, immunosuppression or deficiency, an autoimmune disease, an inflammatory disease, ulcer, irritable bowel syndrome, diarrhea, nausea and vomiting, ulcerative colitis (inflammation and an ulcer of the colon and rectum), diuresis (kidneys produce to much urine), eczema, neurodermatitis (skin disease), acne, diabetes, amenorrhea (periods stop), fatigue and lethargy, overeating, depression, insomnia, asthma, hay fever, and allergies.

How does fear lead to allergy? When an antigen enters the human body, a macrophage (a scavenger cell that eats bacteria and other foreign objects) picks it up and delivers it to a T cell (type of white blood cell). The T cell simultaneously produces and releases interleukin-1, a protein substance that effects other cells in the immune system, in this case it activates a subset of Helper T cells. These Helper T cells secretes interluekin-2 which stimulates the proliferation of still more T cells. These T cells can either activate or suppress B cells, whose job is to make antibodies. Cortisol, one of the hormones released in response to fear, inhibits the production of both interleukin 1 and 2 and macrophages, thus decreasing the ability of T cells to suppress the B cells from making antibodies to the antigen. In other words, when you are afraid, cortisol is released in large amounts. If fear and anxiety are a normal part of your life, elevated levels of cortisol begin to wreck havoc with your immune system preventing it from properly functioning. T cells diminish in number and those that are present just don’t work as well, allowing the B cells to start attacking every foreign substance that enters the body. When this happens the person develops allergies.

Information for this article was obtained from:
The Bantam Medical Dictionary and Shelby, Jane and McCance, Kathryn L. “Stress and Disease.”
Pathophysiology: The Biologic Basis for Disease in Adults and Children, Third Edition. St. Louis: Mosby, 1998. pp. 286-303.

 

al as well as mental stress.