Serissa branch losing leaves

I've had a variagated serissa for several months now, it's been producing lots of new growth and not too many yellow leaves. It's only about 6 inches high now after some major pruning two weeks ago, I removed a third of the trunk because the sets of branches were substantially far apart. Instead of wiring I have been using embroidery thread to shape as the branches are too tiny to do wiring carefully. I loop it around the branch and wrap the end of the thread around the wire at the bottom of the pot that holds the soil screen inside in place.
I decided to train a small branch away from the main trunk with the thread (which worked fine before for weeks on end) but after only two days, nearly every mature leaf withered and dropped. I immediately removed the thread and let the branch move back. Are Serissas that "picky" about shaping/wiring? I did some fairly radical shaping before the major pruning, could the pruning have caused the entire tree to be more vulnerable to the shaping? There are still some new leaves remaining that look fine. Will the rest of the leaves come back? Any advice/feedback appreciated!! Thanks

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