Continuation of Janie’s Blog on her adrenal issues

THIS IS PART ONE, which starts with Dec. 28, 2006, when I thought I had slug­gish adre­nals and low cor­ti­sol. You will note the VERY simi­lar symp­toms to low cor­ti­sol, plus I explore treat­ment options.

PART TWO below is when I finally found out I had HIGH cor­ti­sol – a real shoc­ker con­si­de­ring my symptoms.:

I nor­mally don’t write about me here, but more on thy­roid advo­cacy issues. But this time…it’s going to be ME, because YOU need to be aware of what hap­pe­ned to me…because it can hap­pen to you.

I appear to have adre­nal fatigue.

Now unders­tand this: I didn’t have it when I got on Armour over 4 years ago. I rai­sed my Armour without a hitch, except for low Ferri­tin twice that I had to correct. And for approx. 3 1/2 years, I’ve been opti­mal with Armour with a per­fect mid-afternoon temp of 98.6

So why adre­nal fati­gue now?? It helps to explain it this way: Two years ago, in Dec. of 2004, I ente­red serious peri-menopause. My pro­ges­te­rone fell rock bot­tom while I still had a youth­fully high estro­gen. And I’ve had to deal with the misery of severe estro­gen domi­nance for two years. I’ve used com­poun­ded pro­ges­te­rone cream for those two years, but it was often never enough to stop the symp­toms of estro­gen dominance.

Also, Dr. Lam sta­tes the follo­wing and it explains me to a T: “In early sta­ges of adre­nal fati­gue, cor­ti­sol out­put is high as the body attempts to neu­tra­lize the stress by pro­du­cing more of it. Howe­ver, when too much cor­ti­sol is pro­du­ced, it will have mul­ti­ple unde­si­ra­ble effects. For exam­ple, cor­ti­sol blocks pro­ges­te­rone recep­tors, making them less res­pon­sive to pro­ges­te­rone. Pro­ges­te­rone nor­mally pro­du­ced by the adre­nals comes to a halt in favor of cor­ti­sol. Insuf­fi­cient pro­ges­te­rone pro­duc­tion leads to an imba­lance of estro­gen to pro­ges­te­rone…” (aka estro­gen domi­nance). And voila – I did have high cor­ti­sol in the mor­ning and noon. I had done the saliva adre­nal test just a month after my pro­ges­te­rone had dropped.

Finally, this past Octo­ber, I noti­ced the estro­gen domi­nance FINALLY stop­ped, as did my periods. A huge vic­tory. But in early Decem­ber, after a par­ti­cu­larly busy day on a Satur­day, I majorly crashed.….….and haven’t reco­ve­red since.

And ALL my symp­toms point to adre­nal fati­gue. First, my temps fell. And they were all over the place. My highest would only be 98.3, and one night, I was 97.1. That was VERY wrong for me.

Next, I star­ted waking up EVERY night bet­ween 3 – 5 am. A typi­cal adre­nal symp­tom. Also, if I felt emo­tio­nal about something, my body would get VERY hot. At first I thought it was a hot flash…but it was different.

And I was achy for 1 1/2 weeks. That stop­ped when I rai­sed my Armour and got my temps back up. But even without the achi­ness, I have felt fati­gued all over, and just bad.

Also, I fail the blood pres­sure test in the mor­nings. The other day, my supine blood pres­sure was 135/84. Stan­ding, it was 115/84. A good sign of adre­nal fati­gue. I also have a fas­ter and a poun­ding heartrate.

I have sent off my saliva samples…but have no doubt what the results are going to be. So.…I am going to start the very adre­nal sup­port that I have writ­ten about in so much detail here on STTM. Because there is simply too much stress in my life to think that prac­ti­cing all the other adre­nal sup­port methods are going to help my adre­nals reco­ver, or even help me feel better.

And by the way, for the past year and more, I have always given myself 5000 mgs of Vit. C and high dose B-vitamins, plus E. I have exer­ci­sed regu­larly by wal­king. But it wasn’t enough to stop what a huge female hor­mo­nal change has done to me. I now am using Lico­rice Root daily (which stops some of the break­down of cor­ti­sol in your liver) and 1/2 tsp sea salt, sti­rred in orange juice and my mor­ning yogurt. And I’ll have to start on cortisol.

What can you do to not find your­self in my shoes? For one, if you enter peri-meno, even without the pre­sence of adre­nal fati­gue, I would start on some mild OTC adre­nal sup­port now, which I was never on. Also, do wha­te­ver you can to coun­ter exces­sive emo­tio­nal stress in your life during this time by fin­ding times to laugh and doing what you enjoy. I have been stuck with a job that wore me down, and family issues that stres­sed me terribly, and I’m sure that pla­yed a part.

1 – 7-07 ISOCORT TO HC – the journey

As men­tio­ned above, I did start adre­nal sup­port the day after I did my saliva vials and got them sent, which was about ten days ago. It was Iso­cort, which I thank­fully had on hand. I have always kept a supply in case I ever got the flu, which deci­ma­tes your adrenals.

I multi-dosed it, taking the highest in the mor­ning, a little less by noon, less by 3 pm and the least by 5 – 6 pm. 4, then 3, then 2, then 1, to equal what may be 10 — 15 mgs cor­ti­sol. We know that Iso­cort does NOT con­tain 2 1/2 mgs of cor­ti­sol per tablet, as they state. I also wasn’t worried about any thy­roid dump on this amount.

And I did feel a little bet­ter because of it. My blood pres­sure tests have impro­ved. The Iso­cort also stop­ped the few bouts of nau­sea I would get when I ente­red my place of busi­ness.

But, I’ve still had to deal with the feels bads which would start by late after­noon and would stay with me through the eve­nings. Many adre­nally fati­gued indi­vi­duals start to feel bet­ter after 6 pm – I’ve been the oppo­site. My heart also poun­ded during that time. Remar­kably, the blood pres­sure test would always be good at night, which taught me that mor­nings are a bet­ter time to get good infor­ma­tion from the blood pres­sure test. (It’s desc­ri­bed on the Adre­nal Info page – self-test #1)

Addi­tio­nally, I’ve main­tai­ned this inter­nal shaky/buzzy fee­ling all the time, even fee­ling it when I wake up. I also con­ti­nued to wake up during the night. And just as when this star­ted, I’ve had another crash after a slightly busy day which left me slee­ping on the couch and not fee­ling too swift the next day, on TOP of how bad I already feel.

Finally, I pic­ked up my presc­rip­tion for Cor­tef, aka Hydro­cor­ti­sone or HC, and multi-dosed 17 1/2 mg. (I should have only done 15 mg – I’m impa­tient) And REMARKABLY, I felt MUCH bet­ter last night! My expe­rience just con­firms the expe­rience of thou­sands before me who’ve had to treat their adre­nal fati­gue – that HC works far more supe­rior than Iso­cort, or perhaps than any over-the-counter product.

Today will be my second day on HC, and for the first time since this star­ted a month ago, I feel like I have step­ped through an open window…finally. The past month, I felt like I ente­red a broo­ding and dark foreign land. Gran­ted, the past two years of estro­gen domi­nance was a hell in itself, but the dif­fe­rence in my life due to Armour was huge, so I coped. But the past month was dif­fe­rent, since my temps drop­ped, and I have been fati­gued every sin­gle day, and just plain felt bad.

What will the future hold? I’m unc­lear. I can tell I will feel much bet­ter now, just as I have felt since I star­ted Armour 4 1/2 years ago. But for this to work, I know I’m going to have to change cer­tain stres­sors in my life. I will also con­ti­nue the daily Vit. C, high dose B-vitamins and other sup­ple­ments I use. Plus I am using Lico­rice Root, which I will dis­con­ti­nue after two months.

And I am hear­te­ned by what I once read in Dr. Wilson’s book Adre­nal Fati­gue – that the road to reco­very is a jour­ney. There are “set-backs, frus­tra­tions, and periods of dis­cou­ra­ge­ment”, but pro­gress is all along the way. I believe it. I also recom­mend Jef­fries book, Safe Uses of Cor­ti­sol, to anyone who has to go through adre­nal fati­gue, as well as Peatfield’s book “Your Thy­roid and how to keep it healthy”.

And by the way, I still don’t have the results of my saliva due to weather delays and holi­days, but I am hoping to see them in a week.

1 – 9-07 STOPPED THE LICORICE ROOT

I have stop­ped the Lico­rice Root and let me explain why. One of the side effects of lico­rice, though rare, is high blood pres­sure. I kept doing my blood pres­sure, and it never got high. But what I kept noti­cing was that I had strong heart beats in the eve­ning. It never daw­ned on me that they were due to anything other than my adre­nal fati­gue. But Missy, the Ferri­tin mode­ra­tor, also star­ted on Lico­rice Root to sup­port her adre­nals since she wea­ned off HC. And guess what? She star­ted get­ting strong heart beats. hmmmm. Next, Perry from the Men’s forum sta­ted that when he once used Lico­rice root..HIS HEART FELT LIKE IT WAS BEATING OUT OF HIS CHEST!

So I stop­ped two days ago. And viola…no more strong beats. But I still note that my heart is bea­ting fas­ter at night, so perhaps the Lico­rice Root was simply exa­cer­ba­ting that.

I am still dosing with 17 1/2 mgs, which helps serve to mellow down my ACTH’s bat­te­ring on my adre­nals. I feel pretty good during the day. But at night, I am still waking up, which I hate. And yes­ter­day mor­ning, I woke up a tad dizzy. Sure enough, my blood glu­cose was only 84. I may have to add the other 2 1/2 mgs to my night­time regime. Eating pro­tein at bed­time hasn’t helped.

I am also loo­king into any and every non-HC sup­port I can use. Wil­son, in his book Adre­nal Fati­gue, men­tions in detail some sup­port – some I use, some I want to add. I am also wor­king on emo­tio­nal stress issues, which I know for a fact pla­yed a part in all of this. And the cell extracts are inte­res­ting to me…even if highly expen­sive. (yes, you will occa­sio­nally hear a bird chir­ping when on this page. ) Iro­ni­cally, this web­site is for Chro­nic Fati­gue Syn­drome, which in most cases, is simply under­trea­ted hypothy­roid with pos­si­ble adre­nal fati­gue com­pli­ca­ting it.

1 – 10-07 IMPORTANT SUPPLEMENTS

The below is a sum­mary of the sup­ple­ments recom­men­ded by Wil­son, which I think is impor­tant. But I find it inte­res­ting that I was doing 3/4’s of the below (i.e wasn’t going Ash­wa­gandha, Sibe­rian Gin­seng or Ginkgo) and STILL got adre­nal fati­gue, which tells me that the estro­gen domi­nance, and emo­tio­nal stress, were HUGE fac­tors. My estro­gen domi­nance is gone, so at least I won’t have that scratching the chalk­board. But I have to face the emo­tio­nal stress.

Vita­min C (very invol­ved in adre­nal meta­bo­lism – highest amount of C in your body is found in your adre­nals!) Wil­son likes seeing Ascor­bic Acid mixed with bio­fla­vi­niods. I’m still inves­ti­ga­ting that. Shoot for at least 3000 mg Vit C.

Vita­min E (impor­tant indi­rectly to help adre­nal function) – choose MIXED tocophe­rals, approx 800 iu. I also eat nuts daily.

B-vitamins I use a high-potency B sup­ple­ment. Eating whole grains also gives you natu­ral B-vitamins

Mag­ne­sium I always take this for my heart since I have MVP, but it’s very impor­tant in the opti­mal func­tion of your adre­nals. Find “Mag­ne­sium Citrate”, approx 400 mg. but I am shoo­ting for 800 mg.

If your adre­nal fati­gue makes you ner­vous and jit­tery, add cal­cium to your sup­ple­ments as well as trace mine­rals, which inc­lude Sele­nium plus others. Iodine is in this area, and I take two Kelp tablets daily now since the Iodo­ral was giving me a headache.

Lico­rice Root is sup­po­sedly the best herb for sup­por­ting adre­nal func­tion and can dec­rease your hypogly­ce­mia. It works by bloc­king the con­ver­sion of cor­ti­sol to cor­ti­sone, which lea­ves more cor­ti­sol in your sys­tem. But…I think it made my heart pound har­der at night, so I stop­ped it. I’m disap­poin­ted. I got my first case of hypogly­ce­mia the other mor­ning aftere I stop­ped it! I’m con­si­de­ring re-adding it back in, but every other day, and see. Keep track of your blood pres­sure occa­sio­nally on it.

Wil­son also recommends:

Ash­wa­gandha Root and Leaf–nor­ma­li­zes cor­ti­sol levels, whether high or low. Not to be taken above 35 gms a day. I’m impres­sed with this.

Sibe­rian Gin­seng Root–nor­ma­li­zes adre­nal func­tion. I’m also impres­sed with what it does

Gin­ger Root–helps modu­late adre­nal func­tion. This plea­sed me since I take Gin­ger Root daily! I can’t take more than one cap­sule a day tho, since it sti­mu­la­tes my MVP

>Ginkgo Biloba–a power­ful antio­xi­dant, which is impor­tant for adre­nal func­tion since fati­gued adre­nals pro­duce free radicals

DHEA usually falls with adre­nal fati­gue, but as a woman, you should only take about 5 mgs daily. Taking pro­ges­te­rone also helps pro­duce DHEA

We all recom­mend Sea Salt, espe­cially unre­fi­ned. I have a sha­ker espe­cially made to grind the salt. Sodium loss is com­mon with adre­nal fati­gue, so you want to give it back.

1 – 15-07 CANARY CLUB gets an F, SUPPLEMENTS, and the return of Estro­gen Dominance

Sadly, I still don’t have my Canary Club/Diagnos Tech saliva results. It was recei­ved on Dec. 29^th – 18 long days ago. In fact, a friend’s saliva was recei­ved on Jan. 4^th, and she recei­ved her results last week. And.…alas…the Diag­nos Tech part of the Canary Club web­site is down tonite. A very disap­poin­ting expe­rience. We hope to see this vastly improve if we are going to con­ti­nue recom­men­ding Canary Club.

But, I am now on liquid form of most of the above, which has­tens the absorp­tion. Two of the her­bal liquid extracts – Lico­rice and Ginkgo – are in an alcohol base, which I thought I would tole­rate fine. I was wrong. Found out the hard way that ten drops from each cau­ses me to get sleepy. So tonite I will be boi­ling out the alcohol on these two. (And yes, I’m giving lico­rice root another try in this form)

As far as using liquid herb extracts (or even B-vitamins, etc), it’s sta­ted that you use 98% of what’s in the liquid as com­pa­red to 39 – 53% of what you take in a cap­sule or pill. So think about it – where do you think the remain­der goes?? Ahem. (also the same rea­son we recom­mend doing Armour sublingually)

My estro­gen domi­nance unfor­tu­na­tely has been back for seve­ral days. So, I’m fin­ding my mor­ning a little har­der. I don’t feel great until after I’ve taken my noon 5 mg dose of HC. I’m also quite emo­tio­nal. I’m currently doing 10, 5, 2 1/2, 2 1/2. I sneak in 2 1/2 mgs at bed­time, or three Iso­cort. My temps seem to be just as sta­ble as they were before.

1 – 16-07 It con­cerns you; it con­cerns me…STRESS

As I look back, I now unders­tand that I may have been a high cor­ti­sol per­son my entire life! From a dif­fi­cult childhood on, I’ve had major long term stress over and over. I have no doubt that the high mor­ning and noon cor­ti­sol that I dis­co­ve­red in January of 2004 has been there in one way or another for years.

And, I may still have been a high cor­ti­sol per­son today…if severe estro­gen domi­nance hadn’t been added to the mix. In my mind, along with my current stres­sors with my job and exten­ded family, the estro­gen domi­nance simply put me over the edge.

So here I am; and there are you are. And as I think about it, UNLESS YOU AND I EITHER CHANGE THE STRESSORS, and/or CHANGE THE WAY WE THINK ABOUT AND VIEW YOUR STRESSORS, we’re going to be in trouble.

First, if you are currently on HC, and if you are currently dea­ling with the same stress, or con­ti­ning the same way you view or deal with the stressors…1) you will end up requi­ring more HC to manage your current situa­tion, 2) you can have a hard time wea­ning, and 3) if you do suc­ceed in wea­ning, you’re going to face much stress-dosing to keep your­self from falling back to where you are today.

In my mind, dea­ling with our Adre­nal Fati­gue has to be much more than using HC, giving our­sel­ves plenty of adrenal-friendly sup­ple­ments, and using sea salt. You and I are going to have to work on our stress…one way or the other. I can’t tell you what to do…but I am going to deal with it all, somehow.

PART TWO: WHEN I DISCOVERED I HAD HIGH CORTISOL:

1 – 23-07 To say I am shoc­ked is only put­ting it mildly!

Today, I got my saliva results. They were dela­yed due to a glitch at Diag­nos Tech rather than a pro­blem with Canary Club.

And by my symp­toms follo­wing the crash in early Decem­ber, I would NEVER have gues­sed this. I am HIGH in all four times. The below was done Dec. 29. I had been on Lico­rice Root for 4 days, but can’t ima­gine that Lico­rice Root would have cau­sed this.

7 – 8 am 45 (13 – 24)
Noon 23 (5 – 10)
4 – 5 pm 13 (3 – 8)
Mid­night 8 (1 – 4)

Cor­ti­sol Bur­den 89
DHEA: 3 (3 – 8)

The above would be con­si­de­red Stage 3! I felt like Stage 4 or 5.

I felt horrid. I was waking up at night cons­tantly (but not having a hard time falling asleep — the rhythm was still there). Nau­sea during the day when I went to work. Abso­lu­tely no reco­very from that crash the second Satur­day in Decem­ber. Lower and vaci­lla­ting temps.

This is biza­rre. It shows that exces­si­vely high cor­ti­sol levels can pro­duce the same symp­toms as the other sta­ges – 4 – 7. I am shoc­ked. It has been pro­po­sed to me by fellow mode­ra­tor Vale­rie that I may have only nee­ded Phospha­tidyl­se­rine, aka PS, which is a nutrient that helps lower cor­ti­sol. But how to emo­tio­nally and lite­rally make a tran­si­tion from the HC…which has seriously hel­ped by lowe­ring my ACTH…to PS…is an unknown.

I found the follo­wing about PS, and note that it may be use­ful for BOTH high and low cortisol:

One of the best known and most effec­tive ways to lower excess cor­ti­sol levels is with the nutrient Phospha­tidyl­se­rine (PS). Phospha­tidyl­se­rine is belie­ved to faci­li­tate the repair of the cor­ti­sol recep­tors in the hypotha­la­mus. It is belie­ved that the cor­ti­sol recep­tors get dama­ged by high cor­ti­sol levels redu­cing the abi­lity of the hypotha­la­mus to sense and correct high cor­ti­sone levels. Because Phospha­tidyl­se­rine helps repair the feed­back con­trol appa­ra­tus, it is use­ful in correc­ting both high and low cor­ti­sol levels. Phospha­tidyl­se­rine is also use­ful for pre­ven­ting short-term memory loss, age-related demen­tia and Alzheimer’s disease. Typi­cal dosa­ges are one to three 100 mg. cap­su­les per day. http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=757599

But there’s more to this story:

Free Tes­tos­te­rone: 54 (8 – 20)
Pro­ges­te­rone: >1000 (Postmeno-No HRT: 5 – 95 or HRT Tar­get Range: 100 – 300)
Estra­diol: 12 (Post meno-No HRT: 1 – 4 or HRT Tar­get Range: 5 – 13)

The above sug­gests a lot. For one, I am on topi­cal pro­ges­te­rone and tes­tos­te­rone. There’s a strong pos­si­bi­lity that the high level of pro­ges­te­rone has been con­ver­ting to estrogen…explaining my con­ti­nual estro­gen domi­nance. Same can be true for the tes­tos­te­rone. It has been pro­po­sed to me that I stop the topi­cals for seve­ral weeks, then resume only on troches or oral, since the topi­cals may be over satu­ra­ting my fatty tis­sue and not relea­sing it to coun­ter the high estro­gen. (and I may cease to have the high estro­gen if I lower the high progesterone).

Addi­tio­nally, the high pro­ges­te­rone could be cau­sing the stress res­ponse of my cortisol.

One more thing: I broke my own rule, doing the noon test right around the peak of my Armour admi­nis­tra­tion, which cau­sed my free T3 to look too high. Slap­ping my own hand there.

A good over­view of too high or two low hor­mo­nes.

1-28-2007 A new direc­tion in my treatment…and much insight!

First, because my pro­ges­te­rone levels were acu­tely high, I stop­ped my topi­cal pro­ges­te­rone gel. It cer­tainly appears that though topi­cal pro­ges­te­rone gel was hel­ping me at the begin­ning (in early Jan. of 2005 when I nee­ded it to coun­ter my youth­fully high estro­gen levels), I can only guess that it may have been over-accumulating in the fatty tis­sues under my skin. And after awhile, no mat­ter much I used, it see­med to stop coun­te­ring my estro­gen levels. In fact, in spite of being on topi­cal pro­ges­te­rone, and inc­rea­sing it, my estro­gen domi­nance got WORSE many times, which I’ve had chro­ni­cally for 1 1/2 years. Addi­tio­nally, my high level of pro­ges­te­rone has pro­bably been con­ver­ting to estro­gen – namely, I have been crea­ting my own estro­gen dominance!

I will resume on pro­ges­te­rone even­tually, but will only do it orally.

Next, five nights ago, I stop­ped the HC at bed­time, and switched to a 1000 mg PS com­bi­ned for­mula. The first night was an impro­ve­ment – didn’t wake up as much. The second was a huge improvement…slept solid for 7 hours. The third night, I tried only 500 mgs – woke up more. I added 500 mg in the mor­ning and stuck with 500 mg at night – still woke up more. Last night, I retur­ned to the full 1000 mgs and didn’t have the suc­cess of the second night — I kept waking up and waking up after 6 am. But that is far bet­ter than waking up all night long. I’ll con­ti­nue to try the full 1000 mgs at night.

I also dec­rea­sed my HC to 5 mg in the mor­ning and 5 mg at noon – that was Thurs­day and Fri­day. I felt fine. Yes­ter­day, due to a busy day that star­ted early, I took NO HC and did fine. Was sleepy that night, but female hor­mo­nal fac­tors may be pla­ying in that.

But.…with high cor­ti­sol levels, I know I need to sup­port my adre­nals, which in turn will stop the ACTH poun­ding, to see if I can pre­vent the slide into Stage 4 and beyond. So I made sure to stick with the HC today…and will con­ti­nue with that for seve­ral weeks. I did my usual 10 mgs this mor­ning, and will do 5 at noon. (one obser­va­tion, tho, I had heart poun­ding within a hour of my 10 mgs dose. I can only won­der if that was the delay in the feed­back sys­tem to lower to my own high cor­ti­sol pro­duc­tion.) I may go back down to 5 mg and 5 mg. I want to sup­port – not over-support.

As I write this, I still haven’t found the ans­wer as to why my cor­ti­sol levels are so acu­tely high. I have stress in my life, but that see­med extreme. Could this be the result of my dif­fi­cult entry into peri-meno, follo­wed by two years of estro­gen domi­nance that I may have crea­ted in myself?? There is also evi­dence that higher estro­gen pre­vents the clea­rance of HC from your body, but I did not appear to be estro­gen domi­nant for two months when this hit me in December…though it did return one week after I did the labs. I also won­der if my seve­rely high pro­ges­te­rone levels have been a stress to my body, thus the higher cortisol.

I have also lear­ned that having high levels of cor­ti­sol (i.e Stage 3 of Adre­nal Fati­gue) can cause the exact same symp­toms as the dee­per sta­ges. I had the nau­sea in the face of stress: I had the inner hot fee­ling when fee­ling emo­tio­nal; I had uns­ta­ble temps; my blood pres­sure drop­ped when stan­ding. And I felt horrid.

Bot­tom line: I have to do wha­te­ver it takes to pre­vent the slide into Sta­ges 4 and beyond, and using HC sup­port, the PS and con­ti­nuing with the sup­ple­ments seems to be one focus. But stress reduc­tion has to remain a fac­tor, as it does for anyone rea­ding this, no mat­ter what stage of adre­nal fati­gue you are in. To follow the Sta­ges of Adre­nal Fati­gue, go here.

2-15-2007 Still han­ging in there

It is now 3 weeks since I stop­ped the pro­ges­te­rone gel and still doing MUCH bet­ter in that arena. I have noti­ced a slight amount of domi­nance the last few evenings…but it’s slight as com­pa­red to the cons­tant domi­nance I was unk­no­wingly giving myself the last year and more.

And sub­jec­ti­vely, I can tell my high cor­ti­sol levels are still there, at least in the mor­nings. I con­ti­nue to need 10 mgs HC at break­fast due to an inter­nal shaky fee­ling. Occa­sio­nally, I add 5 mg at noon if I’m under extra stress, but it’s rare. I feel fine all after­noon and eve­nings as com­pa­red to the feel-bads I had at those times of the day when this first star­ted. Still use PS at bed­time suc­cess­fully. I will be curious how this is going to turn out…and whether con­ti­nuing to lose the extreme domi­nance will help my cor­ti­sol levels to fall to a nor­mal level.

3-27-2007 A post I made this month appears to have not made it above.

I am doing nearly 100% bet­ter. I still use 5 mg HC in the mor­nings in the pre­sence of a slight inter­nal shaky fee­ling within the hour after waking. And on more stress­ful days, I add 2 1/2 mg by noon. But the lat­ter is rare. Occa­sio­nally, I need nothing in the mor­nings. Of course, 100% would repre­sent no need for cor­ti­sol at all. But the impro­ve­ment is immense so I’m happy. I have NONE of the misery I had last Decem­ber and January due to high cor­ti­sol. My expe­rience reveals that HC use spec­ta­cu­larly helps high cortisol.

It’s called the “feed­back regu­la­tory loop”… which is from the hypotha­la­mus to the pitui­tary to the adrenals.…and back to the hypotha­la­mus again.

1) The hypotha­la­mus sen­ses the need due to stress 2) sends a mes­sage to your pitui­tary gland called the CRH (Corticotropin-releasing hor­mone) 3) cau­sing the pitui­tary gland to send a mes­sage to your adre­nal cor­tex called the ACTH (Adre­no­cor­ti­co­tro­pic hor­mone) 4) which cau­ses the release of cortisol.

So, with high cor­ti­sol, the manual addi­tion of cor­ti­sol cau­ses the adre­nals to be LESS sti­mu­la­ted by the ACTH…and your ove­rall cor­ti­sol levels will lower.

I am proof.

9-14-2007 Loo­king back, if I had known that my high cor­ti­sol was what it was all along, I would have only done the PS. There are also sup­ple­ments which are known to lower high cor­ti­sol, with zinc being one, and you can read about that here.