Do you think the 24 hour adrenal urine test is a good test? It showed that I was ok for cortisol, but very low for 4 other steroids. I thought cortisol was the key.
I have terrible fatigue, insomnia (take ambien) and low blood pressure. Lately, exercise just makes me worse instead of giving me the high I used to love.
I know that with adrenal fatigue stress should be reduced. The MD I saw Wed. said he would put me on Florinef after other blood results come back ruling out anemia or a change in my thyroid meds. (I left results of urine test with him, but an integrative MD ordered that one, not him.)
What I'm wondering is whether a person can get well if you're unable to change the stressors in one's life?
hi...all i would say is be careful of the ambien..i became addicted to it last year but am now off it...my doctor gave me mirtazapine 15mg to take instead of ambien to help me to come off it...brilliant stuff and now i take nothing...its a antidepressant but with a side effect of making you drowsy. he said that he was giving it to me for the drowsy side effect...from personal experience, i would rather take that than a sleeping pill....anyway, i know it doesnt answer your question for which Dr Lopez is the man but when i saw that you are taking ambien i had to tell u...all the best
Thanks Nicholas, what you say is true I know and I do want to stop taking it.
I have chronic lyme and that's why I went on ambien because it's important that I get rest. I think it plus stress brought down my adrenals.
I was given trazadone first and it just made my head feel funny, like stuffed cotton, and didn't put me to sleep. I didn't like the feeling.
I'll research the one you mentioned.I'm more than willing to give it a try.
I was in a car accident this evening and am worried about the damage this stress can cause. I wasn't hurt, but I know I'm just running on adrenalin. My car was totaled so I have the additional stress of getting a new car on top of everything else.
It's 11:30 and feel like even ambien won't knock me out I'm so wired.
I just checked mirtazapine and see it is also an antihistamine. Maybe this isn't the place to ask, but I'm wondering if all antihistamine's are equal in side effects.
I can't take even a quarter of the dose you're supposed to take of tylenol pm. It makes me so wired feeling and keeps me awake feeling restless.
I believe diphenhydramine (sp?) in tylenol pm is an antihistamine.
Don't forget that the more stress you tack onto your body the more you keep squeezing those adrenals to pump out, which could be difficult if your adrenals are exhausted and you are Exercising as you stated (exercise can be a double edge sword for you...because if it is too intense it could be stress producing, but if it is easy to moderate intensity..it could be stress reducing) and than you add the car wreck and the emotional and physical trauma from that...yikes.
As far as the 24 hour urine....i like it but it doesn't tell me if you are making too much at one time of the day and not enough at another time of the day, which is why I like getting 4 cortisol and DHEA measurements. I am assuming this is the first test done, so we don't have a baseline to determine if you are getting better or worse...we can only assume worse, because you wouldn't be here if you were getting better.
Also, you mentioned thyroid meds...I am assuming they are treating your thyroid, but haven't done anything to help your adrenals, which oftentimes is what is pulling the thyroid down. Remember the medications they are giving you are addressing your sympotms....they don't help strengthen your body, which is what Adrenal Fuel and Neuro Calm do. Keep in mind that the constant surge in cortisol causes a decline in serotonin, your feel good brain messenger.
Hope that gives you some food for thought and some direction, let us know if you want some individualized help to get you started in the right direction.
Dr Len, I have been on synthroid for at least ten years before my adrenal issues. My mother and my niece have it as well. I had the microsomal antibodies when tested back then.
Now, in the present, because my DHEA was so low my internal medicine PCP (not my integrative MD who gave me the urine test and bovine adrenal hormone) says I need very low dose testosterone. This kind of scares me although I know some women who said it made them feel alive again and they weren't referring to sex.
Since posting, I've been in a car accident. I wasn't hurt other than some sore muscles, black and blue knee and abrasions from air bags and only sometimes sore neck and lower back. I was at first in shock, but even after a week, I know the adrenaline is running. Scared to drive now.
I feel like this is making me so much worse on the adrenal issue.
One other question: I know with the 24 hour urine test, you don't get the highs and lows for cortisol like you do with the 4 times a day saliva test. But, why wouldn't it average out high? My cortisol was normal.
A couple of things, I would definitley be on a natural thyroid hormone instead of a synthetic version. FYI...synthetic drugs are NOT exactly the same as the natural form and sometimes the body doesn't recognize the synthetic form. Secondly, I can't say exactly why the 24 hour average wasn't high, as you expect. BUT it could well be that your morning cortisol which is on average about 3-5 times higher in the morning than later in the day, could be low, which I commonly see. This could throw your average off.
I don't know if this is your first measurement or baseline. You could have been high 6-12 months ago...but now your adrenals could be fatigued and exhausted, which is Now making them fall in the normal range, which tells us that your adrenals are the problem.
Hope that answers your questions, if you need some help, let us know.
Thanks for your reply. I have purchased so many supplements for adrenal support already, but when I use them up I will try your products.
I have one more question about being prescribed testosterone gel on the basis of very low DHEA and Androsterone. The T gel he prescribed is bioidentical from a compounding pharmacy.
It seem that I could have been given DHEA or increase my bio identical progesterone since these are both precursors to T as I understnad it.
Shouldn't I have been tested for T levels first since I'm already on progesterone and estriol?
Isn't it risky to be given T?
And wondering why he didn't give me Florinef which was what he said he'd do before he saw my test results. I was seeing him for increasing fatigue and low blood pressure. (my blood pressure switched to high now and that was before starting the T and I don't get that either.
I can grasp medical explanations for many things, but the adrenals are a huge mystery to me!
Thanks for your time and responses. I really do appreciate it!
He didn't test your Testosterone before prescribing Testosterone? That is crazy. It's good that he is using a Bio idenitical...but still if you don't need it you are creating other problems. Remember your liver still has to break down and get rid of the additional hormones in your body...so dependin on how well functioning those and your bowels are could also be complicating the problem. And yes DHEA is a direct precussor to T....Progesterone is more indirect.
THe most important part about getting healty or overcoming adrenal fatigue is getting good information. If I get bad golf lessons..it won't help my game.
Let me know if we can help you or if you would like to set up an initial consult to get you heading in the right direction.
