I’m currently battling some relatively debilitating Adrenal fatigue/thyroid symptoms. You can check my other posts as to how I got to this point if you want, but the bottom line is that I won’t be able to get to a good doctor for a month and probably won’t commence treatment until at least April.
Any supplement recommendations to help me out until then? Anybody had any success with maca, particularly? I just started maca, and it seemed to work at first, but now I feel shitty again.
I’m currently taking:
3g vit. C in divided doses
sea salt
B-complex (eating small chunks of the pill throughout the day)
50mg zinc picolinate
4,000 iu vit. D
Glucosamine/chondroitin
Pantothenic acid 1g divided doses
co-q10 100mg
Yea sleep helps…when I can! The bitch about AF is that you need sleep to recover but AF makes it really hard to sleep for more than a few hours straight.
how do you know you have this? Occasionally hypothyroidism + adrenal insufficiency coincide (Schmidt sydrome), but this would have to be diagnosed with TSH/Free 4 and some type of adrenal measure (AM cortisol, 24-hour urine cortisol, etc).
I could come up with ways that the salt might help (possibly if you’re having low blood pressure). I don’t think any of the other supplements would be helpful.
The honest answer is that I don’t know for sure. But I have some strong indications and a few lab values to back me up. I went through a real stressful period about 7 months ago coupled with inappropriate self-experimentation with an aromitase inhibitor (arimidex) that totally shocked my body. I began having panic attacks, insomnia, depression, arthritic joints, and lost a lot of body hair.
I went to an endocrinologist and we drew some labs. My tsh was elevated from my usual .6 to 1.8. My free t4 was out of range low (.74 with ref range (.82 -1.6, not sure exactly). Morning Cortisol was 14.44 (labcorp ref ranges). Testosterone was 490ish but free T was out of range low, indicating a high SHBG.
Some of my symptoms are beginning to clear but I still don’t feel very well. I do have a doctors appoinent scheduled for march
I like the article…if you DON’T have adrenal fatigue. He mentions a lot about elevated cortisol levels. That is a normal stress response, indicating HEALTHY glands. If you continue living the lifestyle that gives elevated cortisol levels, eventually you could have adrenal fatigue. Adrenal fatigue is characterized by a diminished ability to produce cortisol (and other hormones, but with cortisol being most important).
Looks like this article is more geared at preventing adrenal fatigue. I’m looking for ways to decrease demand for cortisol (which he does cover) and to increase the ability to produce cortisol. Also, in males the adrenal glands are NOT the major source of sex hormones after the age of 35.
-Cut down on training a lot. I find if I feel like shit, and go have a hard workout anyways, I’m wired by night (in a bad way) and can’t sleep or sleep like shit. Not really helping anything.
-Don’t force feed yourself huge meals. IMO just seems like a lot off stress of my body/mind to not make yourself eat so massive for awhile. If you’re training less you won’t need so many cal’s anyways.
-Adaptogens and herbs are ok but don’t really work for more than 2 weeks at a time IME.
-Don’t care too much. I had some bloods done and my #'s are sorta f’ed up but I realized I don’t have the time or the money to mess around with Dr’s and stuff for probably a year. So by the time I get around to it I might be better who knows. Obviously this is just me but I guess the advice is to not cause yourself more trouble by worrying about it all to much.
Have you find out why the arimidex caused problems?
Training has been reduced to 0. I have not done anything besides walk for 4 months and even that can be uncomfortable if my backpack is heavy. You have no idea what adrenal/thyroid problems will do to your connective tissue. It’s frightening to say the least. Food is now consumed every few hours in small amounts. Lots of veggies/nuts/eggs and natural oils.
I think I have an idea what the arimidex did. But this is speculation with some labs to back it up.
I was already low in testosterone before using the drug. So that means I had little substrate for the aromitase enzyme to work on. .5mg/week is almost a TRT dose of arimidex. So I reduced my estrogens to near undetectable levels. In a TRT setting, they would bounce back quickly because of the large buffer of external testosterone being injected. This was not my case.
Estrogen has many diverse actions, especially in the brain. It is needed to maintain adequate levels of serotonin and probably affects other neurotransmitters as well. I did not realize this before using the drug. Lowering my estrogen to zero severely affected my brain’s neurochemistry. This probably had an effect at the hypothalamus and pituitary level: endocrine glands are sensitive to levels of neurotransmitters. The low levels of estrogen set off an alarm reaction in my body, flooding my system with norepinpeherine and stress signals.
The adrenal glands balance these stress signals with a counter-release of cortisol. As my body experienced unprecedented stress, my adrenal glands flooded my body with cortisol for a long time (I had anxiety attacks/etc. for months). Eventually either these glands cannot keep up with the demand or the body ceases to send the request signal for cortisol and you get primary or secondary adrenal insufficiency. This means that I am not making ENOUGH cortisol right now, which jives nicely with the myriad of problems that I am experiencing in my connective tissue.
So basically the amount of stress that my hypogonadal and estrogen deprived state placed on my neuroendocrine system caused a central collapse of hormone production of all varieties. That’s my theory. Now I must claw my way back up to the top.
might I suggest a slightly offbeat remedy?
Training: Cut it down. Every day, do what you want to, if you don’t wanna do it don’t. Take some nature walks or in green surroundings if you can.
Diet: Go out to the chi-chi restaurants a few nights this week (according to your budget). Regardless, have a meal that you classify as ‘comfort food’, but keep it traditional eg: corned beef and cabbage and not outback bloomin onions. End the meal with red wine, coffee, cheese, fruits, dark chocolate etc.
In essence, you must indulge your self to the best of you ability. Even if this means simply, going to the movies. You’ll feel better in no time.
For how long did you take the arimidex? Sorry for so many questions, I’m interested in this kind of stuff. So what you are theorizing is tanking the E2 caused more stress signals exasperating the adrenal fatigue.
Why did the symptoms not stop when you stopped the arimidex? I thought SHBG is nothing more than a transport molecule for T and doesn’t affects its usefulness. Is the htpa negatively regulated by E2 so wouldn’t a decrease in estrogen upregulate hormone production?
[quote]BIGZEUS wrote:
For how long did you take the arimidex? Sorry for so many questions, I’m interested in this kind of stuff. So what you are theorizing is tanking the E2 caused more stress signals exasperating the adrenal fatigue.
Why did the symptoms not stop when you stopped the arimidex? I thought SHBG is nothing more than a transport molecule for T and doesn’t affects its usefulness. Is the htpa negatively regulated by E2 so wouldn’t a decrease in estrogen upregulate hormone production?[/quote]
2 weeks @ .5mg/week. Symptoms probably did not stop because the extreme amount of stress shut down remaining testosterone production, limiting recovery of estrogen.
Note: HPTA= hypothalamus pituitary testicular axis. Don’t forget about the hypothalumus. Hormone production is rooted deep within the brain.
What you are not realizing is that Estrogen signals the hypothalamus to release GnRH which then signals the pituitary to release LH. But Estrogen can inhibit the release of LH at the pituitary. So what you have are two checkpoints. If GnRH gets out of hand because of too much estrogen, the same estrogen will inhibit LH release at the pituitary. At least that is my understanding. Maybe high estrogen is more inhibitory on then pituitary than stimulating on the hypothalamus.
Also, a decrease in estrogen will alter serotonin levels. The thyroid needs adequate serotonin to function properly. And with a poorly functioning thyroid, testosterone levels will suffer.
I have experienced a biological death spiral. Multiple biochemical pathways become dysfunctional and then cannot coerce the others into functioning properly again. This is when medical intervention is required.
How in nature would a man’s estrogen levels ever reach zero? You would have to be dead. So the body becomes very confused when this happens.
I think I’ll start a thread in the steroid forum. I agree that the issue is much more complex than just one hormone.
Anyways, anyone have opinions on DHEA supplementation? I know it can be useful in old guys with falling hormone levels but what about helping adrenal fatigue? I’ve heard mixed things such as helping in the short term but making things worse in the long term, or it being too unpredictable to be effective.
Go ahead and post in the steroid forum, but you are asking for misinformation. They’ll tell you how to run a cycle/“proper” pct or whatever, but we do not need information on steroid cycles (which btw are HELL on adrenal glands and thyroid function). It’s all tied together.
And for every person using exogeneous testosterone who feels amazing blah blah blah, I can find you one who now has reaped no benefit or diminishing benefit over time because their problem exists outside of the HPTA axis but somehow interacts with the HPTA to make it appear dysfunctional.
Stick to mesorx men’s health and read threads by “marianco.” He has an unbelievable grasp of the interactions of psychology and endocrine issues.