July 20, 2009

Louis Nei­pris, M.D., a staff wri­ter who has writ­ten many fine artic­les for myOptumHealth.com, recently wrote one article tit­led Adre­nal Fati­gue: Is it for real? It appea­red on Upper Michi­gan News, TV 6 web­site on July 16th and is making the rounds on other sites. His ans­wer to his own ques­tion?  “Not really”. He adds  “it’s not an accep­ted medi­cal diagnosis.”

Oops.

Dr. Nei­pris, thy­roid patients all over the world beg to dif­fer, as do a gro­wing body of collea­gues in your pro­fes­sion. Adre­nal fati­gue, aka low cor­ti­sol, has been dis­co­ve­red on the back of a huge body of thy­roid patients, wea­ring them down with  irri­ta­bi­lity, anxiety, sha­ki­ness, fee­ling dizzy or lighthea­ded­ness, sleep issues, swea­ting, salt cra­ving, nau­sea in the face of stress, and a host of other symp­toms uni­que to each indi­vi­dual with adre­nal fati­gue. My per­so­nal obser­va­tion, as a thy­roid patient acti­vist, is that up to 50% of millions of thy­roid patients all over the world, may have adre­nal fati­gue, or at the very least, a slug­gish feed­back loop.

Even worse, the wides­pread occu­rrence of adre­nal fati­gue, espe­cially in thy­roid patients, has cau­sed pro­blems when they try rai­sing a far supe­rior thy­roid medi­ca­tion called desic­ca­ted thy­roid. Because cor­ti­sol is nee­ded to faci­li­tate the move of thy­roid hor­mo­nes from the blood to the cells, the direct T3 in desic­ca­ted thy­roid pools in the blood, cau­sing low-cortisol-induced hyper symp­toms like a poun­ding hear­trate and irri­ta­bi­lity. The first-pass treat­ment then has to start with hydro­cor­ti­sone like presc­rip­tion Cor­tef from their doctors.

Why have such a large body of thy­roid patients found them­sel­ves with adre­nal fati­gue and its low cor­ti­sol? It’s clear. The TSH lab test sucks, giving one a “nor­mal” rea­ding for years in spite of obvious cli­ni­cal pre­sen­ta­tion of hypothy­roid symp­toms, and pushing one’s adre­nals into over­drive with high cor­ti­sol and adre­na­line to keep the patient going, and ulti­ma­tely lea­ding to adre­nal fati­gue.  On page 65 of the Stop the Thy­roid Mad­ness book, you’ll read about a 44 year old woman who went 15 years with a “nor­mal” TSH result, in spite of obvious cli­ni­cal pre­sen­ta­tion of hypothy­roi­dism, and which led to her own low cor­ti­sol. This is not uncommon.

Second, the risk of adre­nal fati­gue is high due to the ina­de­quate treat­ment of T4 medi­ca­tions like Synth­roid, Levoxyl, levothy­ro­xine, Eltro­xin and other T4-only meds. They all leave patients with their own brand and inten­sity of lin­ge­ring symp­toms of a poor treat­ment, for­cing the adre­nals to kick in too long for many.

Even William Mck. Jef­fries MD., who wrote the medi­cal clas­sic Safe Uses of Cor­ti­sol around 1984, unders­tood the pre­pon­de­rance of adre­nal fati­gue even without the diag­no­sis of Addison’s, and the need for phy­sio­lo­gic doses of cor­ti­sol treat­ment, or the amount nee­ded by each indi­vi­dual.  And he would cer­tainly be ama­zed by the explo­sion of adre­nal fati­gue that has occu­rred since then in thy­roid patients thanks to the lousy TSH and synthe­tic T4-only ‘affaire de coeur’ with doctors.

Adre­nal fati­gue may not be an “accep­ted diag­no­sis” by many.  But medi­cal pro­fes­sio­nals and doc­tors who think it’s not real or an accep­ta­ble diag­no­sis will have to face a huge body of patients glo­bally who DO have real live adre­nal fati­gue. And adrenally-fatigued patients can get realllllly hos­tile and angry because of low cor­ti­sol, and be very impa­tient when you deny their rea­lity.  (You’re going to see a lot of com­ments to this post which I highly sug­gest reading.)

P.S. Even desic­ca­ted thy­roid like Natu­reth­roid and the pre-reformulated Armour are not con­si­de­red to be the stan­dard of prac­tice for trea­ting hypothy­roi­dism, yet thy­roid patients all over the world are having lives CHANGED thanks to it.

***Want to be infor­med of my blog posts? Curious what’s on my mind? Use the Noti­fi­ca­tions to the left and right below the links.

***Read below why thy­roid patients are not happy with Armour and switching to brand names like Naturethroid.

  • Want to keep track of these “fringe web­site” blog posts? ;-) Curious what’s on Janie’s mind? Use the noti­fi­ca­tion on the lower left of the links, called a News­let­ter, or an RSS Feed.
  • The extre­mely hip and sophis­ti­ca­ted STTM t-shirts are half price! Great BUMPER STICKERS, too. Spread the word – YOU may make a dif­fe­rence in someone’s life.
  • Check out the patient-to-patient book with even more detail (and which doc­tors seem to res­pect more than websites).
  • Need to unders­tand all your best options for thy­roid treat­ment? Go here.
  • Keep infor­med of each live Thy­roid Patient Com­mu­nity Call on Talkshoe by sig­ning up as a follo­wer.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 20th, 2009 and is filed under hypothyroidism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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24 Responses to “Doctor questions if adrenal fatigue is real”

  1. Shae said:

    Jul 20, 09 at 11:57 am

    I have adre­nal fati­gue. I am a holis­tic prac­ti­tio­ner, so I also get alter­na­tive the­ra­pies, such as acu­punc­ture, mas­sage, chi­ro­prac­tic, Reiki and acu­pres­sure. EVERY per­son I see, I am cons­tantly lec­tu­red on the low “chi” in my over­wor­ked adre­nals. I take a sup­ple­ment for adre­nal sup­port and am on Armour (3 months new to Armour after years of Synth­roid).
    The diz­zi­ness is insane! I have been known to pass out on occa­sion if I move too quickly. there are also days that I could just lay on the sofa and sleep. I am often grumpy and I can­not stand being grumpy!

    I am very lucky to have a male doc­tor who is also hypothy­roid (I feel like I won the medi­cal lot­tery) and I pass along a lot of infor­ma­tion to him regar­ding thy­roid edu­ca­tion. He is very well ver­sed in adre­nal fati­gue and no mat­ter what my tests say — he belie­ves me, because he, too, lives with it!

  2. Rachel Pineau said:

    Jul 20, 09 at 12:05 pm

    Oh do i ever know about the nau­sea in the face of stress. I’m a living exam­ple of adre­nal fati­gue due to ina­de­quate treat­ment of hypothy­roid using synth­roid and mea­su­red by TSH test. I’ve suf­fe­red now for almost 10 years and can’t seem to find a doc­tor who will lis­ten, except my natu­ro­pathic doc­tor. Unfor­tu­na­tely she could not presc­ribe either des­si­ca­ted thy­roid or cor­ti­sol, but i did get some relief with glan­du­lars and res­truc­tu­red diet, but alas, it’s just not enough to get my life back. Now I’m on the correct meds thanks to some great info i got on the face­book site from some very help­ful peo­ple. We’ll see how that goes as i only star­ted a few weeks back.

  3. Liza C. said:

    Jul 20, 09 at 12:14 pm

    STTM hel­ped me con­nect the rela­tionship bet­ween HypoT and Adre­nal Fati­gue. I got treat­ment for HypoT 3 years ago but things still weren’t great and I still had many symp­toms. A year ago, I inc­rea­sed my thy­roid meds to 3.5 grains in hopes of sol­ving the remai­ning symp­toms but this cau­sed a severe adre­nal crash where I cried for 3 weeks and couldn’t move from the couch. When I read on STTM that the crash was likely due to weak adre­nals I rea­li­zed I had almost all the symp­toms of adre­nal fati­gue. That’s when I asked my doc­tor for Hydrocortisone.

    The day I star­ted HC my mother and hus­band said the air around me shif­ted, I was more alert, moved fas­ter, tal­ked fas­ter, my face lif­ted, I smi­led more. I have been on HC for a year but noti­ced impro­ve­ment in my life imme­dia­tely. I can now exer­cise like nor­mal peo­ple (1 hour, every day if I want and have energy the next day, ins­tead of crashing). I handle life stress with ease, my body temp is defi­ni­tely more even, I sleep bet­ter at night, stay awake and alert all day. The list goes on and it is nothing short of a miracle.

    Given my own jour­ney and both what I have obser­ved in myself, and what my family has con­fir­med in their obser­va­tion of me, I am abso­lu­tely cer­tain adre­nal fati­gue is real and can be trea­ted. Thanks to STTM for everything.

  4. Laura said:

    Jul 20, 09 at 12:16 pm

    I have only had to fire two doc­tors. The one I see now unders­tands adre­nal fati­gue a little bet­ter than most, but I still had to edu­cate myself. No one can afford NOT to edu­cate themselves.

  5. Georgia said:

    Jul 20, 09 at 1:05 pm

    I am pretty sure that I have adre­nal bur­nout. I wor­ked for a cou­ple of years in a stress­ful social work job. During that time I took a sti­mu­lant for ADD, lost a brother, and my mili­tary hus­band was sent away for a year.

    My life has been prac­ti­cally stress free for a year now but I feel like I have a debi­li­ta­ting disease. On a scale of 0 – 10 in terms of energy, with 0 being the lowest I feel like I fluc­tuate bet­ween 1 – 3. I get an ave­rage of 12 – 16 hours of sleep a day and when I’m not slee­ping I lie or sit almost all day. I have most of the hypothy­roid symp­toms. I am not ane­mic, dia­be­tic, and my TSH is nor­mal (of course). I tried anti­de­pres­sants for awhile that made me feel worse. When I did find a doc­tor willing to treat me for hypothy­roi­dism, he put me on a synthe­tic T4/T3 com­bi­na­tion and pro­ges­te­rone cream regi­men. I felt worse and gai­ned an addi­tio­nal 40lbs in 6 months. I was also so depres­sed on this regi­men that I even felt sui­ci­dal at times.
    I am not taking any medi­ca­tion, just trying to eat a who­le­some, clean diet, get plenty of sunshine and get acu­punc­ture. So far, I haven’t noti­ced any impro­ve­ment but I haven’t got­ten any worse, either. I am trying to find out as much as I can about adre­nal fati­gue but I find a lot of the advice to be con­tra­dic­tory (do/don’t take adre­nal glan­du­lar). I am at such a loss over what to do at this point. I feel des­pair. I can’t work, can’t exer­cise, can’t par­ti­ci­pate in enjo­ya­ble acti­vi­ties. Some experts say that it could take years for me to reco­ver. I know I cau­sed a lot of damage to my body during those few high-stress years but how long will I have to pay for it and is there anything that can help me along besi­des lots of rest and pro­per nutrition?

  6. Elenor said:

    Jul 20, 09 at 2:08 pm

    I first star­ted on Iodo­ral — which gave me energy, lif­ted a fog I didn’t even rea­lize I was under, and of which I still take 3 – 4 pills a day! A half-year later, after fin­ding STTM, I star­ted on Iso­cort. I didn’t notice much res­ponse to the Iso­cort. I am thank­ful that a local doc was on the STTM list: I took him my pro­po­sal (HC and Armour, as per sug­ges­ted dosing sched. at STTM) and he was willing to go along and presc­ribe it. (Thank you Janie and STTM!!)

    A bunch of symp­toms I thought were “because I was old (52), fat (nearly 300 pounds), and seden­tary” were in fact adre­nal and thy­roid! I did not rea­lize that the fee­ling I woke up with — like someone had taken a bat to my kidneys! — was adre­nal, until it went away. I did not rea­lize that my hyper sen­si­ti­vity to bright light and loud noi­ses was adre­nal. I did not rea­lize my stiff neck every mor­ning (“must be a bad pillow”) was adre­nal. It DID take nearly two years on HC to com­ple­tely relieve those symp­toms, and I did gain a real-quick 30 pounds (that I had pre­viously lost {sigh}); but the relief was SO worth it!

    I am now wor­king out the dosing for the (new horrid-bad) Armour (and wai­ting for the car­pal tun­nel, that came roa­ring back when they chan­ged it, to go away again).

  7. Rainbow said:

    Jul 20, 09 at 3:04 pm

    If adre­nal fati­gue isn’t real, then why did I FINALLY start slee­ping through the night once I got on 30mg of HC? I had been expe­rien­cing insom­nia for over a year and nothing else had wor­ked. I am now slee­ping beau­ti­fully, which I’m SURE is hel­ping my body heal. I sure hope doc­tors wise up one of these days.

  8. Natalie said:

    Jul 20, 09 at 3:26 pm

    This is insane, but I am not sur­pri­sed. So many hard-headed doc­tors don’t know how to look past what they has been spoon fed for years. Why do they ack­now­ledge that there is a hypo-functioning thy­roid pro­blem before the thy­roid com­ple­tely gives out, but they don’t ack­now­ledge that adre­nals give out as well? It is ridi­cu­lous. I think it is just because they don’t like to step out of the com­fort zone of what they already “know”. I am so glad there are peo­ple like you Janie, and other doc­tors who will open their minds and really take a look at what is going on with our bodies. If I gave myself over to the drug-happy tra­di­tio­nal medi­cal doc­tors, I would be a com­plete zom­bie.
    With the new know­ledge I am gai­ning I finally have hope for having a life again.

  9. Nick R. said:

    Jul 20, 09 at 4:51 pm

    Adre­nal fati­gue is a rea­lity. Period. After strug­gling for years with I-didn’t-know-what, and then being told I had weak adre­nals by natu­ral prac­ti­tio­ners, I have been finally coming to learn about my hypothy­roid con­di­tion and the oh-so-common link bet­ween that and my flag­ging adre­nals. I’ve been bles­sed enough to get a doc­tor who’s open min­ded and will lis­ten to what I say (although I don’t think he really belie­ves me) and go along with me for a while. He’s even given me a presc­rip­tion of armour and HC — I hope it works, I’ve got a lot to prove to him!

  10. aprillv68 said:

    Jul 20, 09 at 6:39 pm

    I clearly remem­ber when my symp­toms of Adre­nal Fati­gue really went into high gear, and that was when i first star­ted on Armour (approaching 6 years come Novem­ber) and i could not unders­tand what was hap­pe­ning to me. I had just about every symp­tom under the sun, inc­lu­ding slug­gish pupils (when i went to the adre­nal page on STTM web­site). I took some much nee­ded advice and star­ted on Hydro­cor­ti­sone (with , of course, lowe­ring my Armour tem­po­ra­rily before star­ting again) ands within a very short period those low cor­ti­sol symp­toms went away. But,after a few months, i had to expe­ri­ment and i didn’t want to leave well enough alone, so i made the dumb mis­take of wea­ning off just when i was fee­ling bet­ter, and enough to slowly start rai­sing my Armour and, you gues­sed it, those adrenal/low cor­ti­sol symp­toms retur­ned. Long story (to long to post here) but i finally went back on it last fall after a 24 hr adre­nal saliva cor­ti­sol test sho­wed that it was more than i thought, and it sho­wed adre­nal insuf­fi­ciency! I am now doing bet­ter on a regi­men of 3 grains of Armour and 25 mg of Hydro­cor­ti­sone daily.

  11. Missy said:

    Jul 20, 09 at 8:19 pm

    I have no idea why a doc­tor would think there are no pro­blems that fall bet­ween having nor­mal, healthy adre­nals, and having com­plete adre­nal fai­lure! When most any other part of our bodies get sick and it hap­pens gra­dually, it is trea­ta­ble early for the relief of symp­toms. Why oh why don’t most doc­tors get a clue and give us the relief we need before we are so sick that it is tough to get well even with cor­ti­sol replacement?

    My adre­nals can pro­duce a low nor­mal amount of cortisol..but when sti­mu­la­ted, they barely rise. So most doc­tors would say that I am fine, in other words, I am not at death’s door. But I do not res­pond well to stress. I lose too much salt, have low blood pres­sure, ache all over and have chro­nic fati­gue. Qua­lity of life is lac­king. This is all hel­ped with a sim­ple repla­ce­ment of cor­ti­sol. The solu­tion is sim­ple and not expen­sive. I am thank­ful I have a doc­tor who unders­tands this.

  12. Sam said:

    Jul 21, 09 at 1:14 am

    This week I took my 24 hour sali­vary cor­ti­sol test to my doc­tor which in my mind sho­wed my adre­nal sys­tem was not wor­king pro­perly — my 8am rea­ding was below threshold and all others were just on the lower limit of ‘normal’.

    Accor­ding to him howe­ver my results sho­wed that my adre­nal out­put is nor­mal as if you ave­rage it out over the day it just bumps along the bot­tom of the graph. So I got sent away with — no cor­ti­sol treat­ment, the same level of T4 and T3 and an inc­rease in my anti-depressants because I must have a “rare form of depres­sion which cau­ses tired­ness and not depres­sion!”. I want to scream. all I want is to get on with my life not sit in this fog of exhaus­tion and pain.

  13. ibeji said:

    Jul 21, 09 at 1:17 am

    Dear Janie,

    you wrote: “Because cor­ti­sol is nee­ded to faci­li­tate the move of thy­roid hor­mo­nes from the blood to the cells” — as far as I know, there is a recep­tor mole­cule in the cell (or even in the nuc­leus, I can’t remem­ber which right now) which binds to T3 and Cor­ti­sol at the same time, only then can it attach to a spe­ci­fic spot onto the DNA in the nuc­leus and block the expres­sion of that spe­ci­fic gene, which in turn inc­rea­ses the rate of cell metabolism.

    So T3 and Cor­ti­sol are in fact co-factors, which by the way also explains why one can “replace” the other, at least up to a cer­tain point, because the con­cen­tra­tion of the pro­duct, T3+Cortisol+receptor, depends on the con­cen­tra­tion of all three reac­tants, and as long as there are suf­fi­cient mini­mal amounts of two of these, rai­sing the con­cen­tra­tion of the third reac­tant also inc­rea­ses the con­cen­tra­tion of the pro­duct (law of mass action).

    Cheers,
    ibeji

  14. Anita Theodoropoulos said:

    Jul 21, 09 at 4:41 am

    OMG am I glad you sent me the article on Adre­nal Fati­gue! I just did another series of blood tests(TSH nor­mal again) and am seeing another doc­tor tomo­rrow. The symp­toms are VERY REAL. I have been exhaus­ted for one year now and no doc­tor is lis­te­ning. I have gone to 3 ortho­pe­dics for my neck pain and stif­ness. I crave salt, I sweat like a pig when I walk outside, and if I can walk I get tired doing that. I go to sleep tired and wake up tired that is when I can sleep. I have cons­tant soar throats and fall asleep during the day with out wan­ting to. Plus I have 2 small growths on my thy­roid but there is nothing wrong with me so the doc­tors tell me. hope­fully the new one I will go to tom­mo­row will lis­ten. If not I need all the artic­les I can get to self edu­cate myself. The ques­tion is when will doc­tors edu­cate them­sel­ves on lis­te­ning to patients and not just loo­king at TSH tests and T4 but loo­king at phy­si­cal symp­toms as well!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  15. Laura said:

    Jul 22, 09 at 7:09 am

    I have adre­nal fati­gue. When I first took the 24 hour saliva test, two times during the day my levels were so low they were unrea­da­ble! I am so bles­sed to have found a doc­tor that not only will presc­ribe Armour, but actually orde­red the cor­ti­sol test for me and presc­ri­bed HC! I felt so much bet­ter within days of star­ting the HC! My mind was lif­ted from a fog. It was like seeing clearly through glas­ses for the first time! I had more energy, and actually had enough ambi­tion to get things done, ins­tead of just sit­ting around all day. It was lovely! Then I got preg­nant with my second child and went off the HC. I did “ok” during the preg­nancy, but after I had her I crashed horribly, and dr wouldn’t presc­ribe the HC because I was breast­fee­ding. I had a really bad 6 months before my body reco­ve­red on it’s own enough to func­tion. Just as I was about to get back on HC, I got preg­nant with #3. I con­vin­ced my dr. (after lots of research) to let me get back on HC. It hel­ped some, but not as much as before. I am afraid to take too much and hurt the baby, I haven’t tried rasing the dose (I was on 20mg), or rasing my Armour. I wea­ned off of it, but am sure I will need to get right back on again after the baby comes. I am con­fi­dent that I will be able to figure it out, and get myself back again!

  16. ibeji said:

    Jul 22, 09 at 9:27 am

    P.S.: See for ins­tance “Core­gu­la­tor Inte­rac­tions with the Thy­roid Hor­mone Recep­tor” by Jamie M.R. Moore and R. Kiplin Guy in Mole­cu­lar & Cellu­lar Pro­teo­mics 4:475 – 482, 2005, avai­la­ble online at http://www.mcponline.org/cgi/reprint/4/4/475?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&andorexactfulltext=and&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&sortspec=relevance&volume=4&firstpage=475&resourcetype=HWCIT

  17. Jennyfer said:

    Jul 26, 09 at 7:44 am

    Adre­nal fati­gue is real. Many years ago, i could no lon­ger affec­ti­vely cope with the stress of this world. I shut down. I went to all the doc­tors. no one could help me. I was irri­ta­ble, couldn’t sleep, felt bet­ter in the eve­ning, was having strange weight fluc­tua­tions (it was like diet and exer­cise didn’t help, it was like the calo­rie theory just didn’t apply to me, was having menus­tral dif­fi­cul­ties, pro­blems with acne, hair dry and brittle, facial edema. and it goes on) I finally found some­body who tes­ted all my hor­mo­nes. I was low in dhea and cor­ti­sol. my insu­lin levels were ele­va­ted, my thy­roid was whac­ked out “des­pite being nor­mal” i was vita­min d defi­ceint. I was low in pro­ges­te­rone. I was a mess.

  18. amanda said:

    Aug 21, 09 at 12:46 pm

    Can someone tell me where to locate a doc­tor who will be willing to work with me and see if adre­nal fati­gue is a pro­per diag­no­sis? I’ve won­de­red for the last few months if it isn’t the case or if I might be cli­ni­cally depres­sed. But rea­ding over cli­ni­cal depres­sion symp­toms and also adre­nal fati­gue symp­toms, the lat­ter seems much more fit­ting. From rea­ding all of your posts, it looks like a doc­tor who is willing to recog­nize the rea­lity of this diag­no­sis is rare.

    (Go here: http://www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/how-to-find-a-good-doc

    Also join groups and ask: http://www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/talk-to-others.

    And it’s strongly recom­men­ded to do the 24 hour adre­nal saliva test http://www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/adrenal-info , which does not require a doc­tor, and take those results to the doc­tor after you have read this: http://www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/lab-values)

  19. Jacqueline said:

    Oct 25, 09 at 8:53 am

    It’s odd that this is the stance that’s taken, since Addison’s and Cushing’s disea­ses ARE accep­ted as ligi­ti­mate diag­no­ses. The news­let­ter I get from Women to Women just cove­red Adre­nal Fait­gue. The article came with a handy chart lining up symp­toms of AF with Cushing’s and Addison’s — they are more simi­lar than they are not. Here’s a link to the article. Scroll about half way down for the chart.

    Adre­nal extre­mes — could you be on your way to Cushing’s or Addison’s disease?

  20. Bonnie Monzeglio said:

    Oct 28, 09 at 12:44 pm

    OMG! How long have you peo­ple been here? feel like I’ve found the end of the rain­bow! I have an endo who refu­ses to lis­ten to me, I have slightly low levels of TSh and FreeT4 and I am on Armour, but I don’t take the same every day, or some­ti­mes I don’t take any at all. In fact, I just went a week without any, and I felt pretty good. I have had many of the symp­toms men­tio­ned here, and have told my endo, he just makes me drink water and swa­llow, tests my refle­xes and wri­tes me a new script! I’m doing my own research. I just found out that you are sup­po­sed to take Armour 2 x aday, not once, like I have been doing. No won­der I feel like crap! And , you should take Cor­ti­sol (Hydro­cor­ti­sone ?) with it. Well, well, well. I should have gone to medi­cal school. I have a lot of rea­ding to do.

    (From Janie: glad you found STTM. And patients are only taking HC if they prove they have adre­nal fati­gue. http://www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/adrenal-info You may not. Here’s how to find a much bet­ter doc: http://www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/how-to-find-a-good-doc )

  21. Bonnie Monzeglio said:

    Oct 28, 09 at 1:03 pm

    HI Janie, I do have many of the symp­toms men­tio­ned, fog­gi­ness, diz­zi­ness, neck pain, sleep fore­ver, but still tired. I just chec­ked my levels of 1 week ago against the “nor­mal levels” My TSh was 3.71, my FreeT4 was .0.5 and my Total T3 was 1.01. Endo says that my free T4 was low, others were nor­mal. They are not nor­mal. I am going to go back and havean adre­nal test done to see what that shows, and maybe try the other armour thy­roid com­po­si­tions. Maybe the new for­mu­la­tion is not wor­king for me. I had radioac­tive iodine in 2005 after 5 years of suf­fe­ring with hyperthy­roi­dism. Thought I would be bet­ter onthe other side, but not quite. Also, gai­ning weight. Thanks for all your help.

  22. Brooke said:

    Dec 13, 09 at 6:24 am

    I too suf­fer from Adre­nal fati­gue, and the wes­terns doc­tors are abso­lu­tely use­less! I dis­play al the clas­sic symp­toms of adre­nal fati­gue, the cons­tant ill­ness and lung infec­tions, the need to sleep 12 – 16 hours per day, the weight gain (ETC.). The only relief I have found is from Chi­nese Her­bal Medi­cine. I encou­rage ever­yone with adre­nal fati­gue to explore TCM for pos­si­ble “cures”. Lico­rice Root, Chi­nese Gin­seng, and Ash­waghandha are the 3 best herbs to help repair your adre­nals. *Unfor­tu­na­tely I can’t remem­ber the case study which pro­vi­ded the evi­dence for this* You can find adre­nal sup­port tonic in health food and vita­min sto­res, and Afri­can Rooi­bos tea, Chi­nese white tea, and yerba mate are all exce­llent subs­ti­tu­tes for cof­fee, and soda. Plus, they help your body repair your adre­nals with a huge dose of antio­xi­dants, w/o all the caffeine.

    I have star­ted taking the above men­tio­ned sup­ple­ments, and subs­ti­tu­ting tea for cof­fee and soda for over a year with exce­llent results. What wor­ked for me may not help ever­yone, howe­ver I felt I had to con­tri­bute the little know­ledge I’ve acqui­red to the rest of the Adre­nal Fati­gue suf­fe­rers out there.

  23. Gerry Geneva said:

    Dec 29, 09 at 9:51 pm

    These doc­tors irri­tate me so much. I cons­tantly hear from peo­ple who expe­rience this exact situa­tion. Their doc­tor simply doesn’t believe them when they bring up adre­nal fati­gue. My res­ponse: fire your doc­tor and get one that has a clue.

    I think we’ll be seeing a com­mon trend in coming years of peo­ple taking their health into their own hands and uti­li­zing the mas­sive amount of infor­ma­tion avai­la­ble from sites like this to “treat” themselves.

    Nice post.

  24. Missie Turnen said:

    Jan 15, 10 at 7:50 am

    I need advice. I am taking levothy­ro­xine 75 mg and now have been presc­ri­bed 20 mg of hydro­cor­ti­sone in the mor­ning and 10 mg in early eve­ning. I don’t like the way the hydro­cor­ti­sone makes me feel. I have swe­lling and some of my joints hurt and some­ti­mes tin­gling throughout my body. I am thin­king of sto­ping the hydro­cor­ti­sone and star­ting homeo­pathic adre­neal sup­port. Any comments/advice?

    (From Janie: I’d strongly recom­mend joi­ning the NTH Adre­nals group: http://www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/talk-to-others )

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