Treating/Recovery from Adrenal Fatigue

[Vince Carter]

Have any of you successfully recovered or treated adrenal fatigue/insufficiency with any success? I was recently placed on a low 5mg HC dose after showing a near total lack of cortisol in back/back saliva tests. I currently supp 50mg/daily of DHEA and 50mg/daily Pregnenolone after testing showed deficiencies.
I'd rather not take HC, DHEA and Preg I'm ok with, for now, but looking in to recovery now. Things I see that I can do are reducing hydrogenated and vegetable oils of which I think I use a lot. Reducing caffeine I've done but could do more, same with alcohol. I do have some salt and sugar cravings and then other fatigue based symptoms.
Read also Vitamin C, B Vitamins/B-12, adaptogenic herbs(?).

 

[Nelson Vergel]

Good sleep is the number one way to improve adrenal insufficiency. Number 2 (in my opinion) is using relaxation methods like listening to soothing music, breathing exercises or mindfulness meditation. All have been shown to lead to a better and healthier cortisol blood level curve.

It would be interesting to see how your cortisol values are now with hydrocortisone.

 

[Vince Carter]

Im working on all of those things, going to bed when I feel tired instead of a specific clock time, I wake, naturally, no alarm clock. Cleaned up a stress source in my personal life and somethings at work, I wear those out at the gym over lunch, I never skip a meal or snack. It seems I got some things clear and somethings in progress so I started thinking about diet, mainly.

 

[a_crossfitter]

- I stay away from central nervous stimulants (CNS) as much as I can (caffeine and Adderall).
- Eat more veggies and protein.
- Try to stay away from sugars.
- I take Gaia Adrenal Health right before bed as it seems to make me stay asleep.
- I take GABA throughout the day (Bulk supplements).

and finally, I cut back on my Test Prop dose to .25ml Every Other Day (EOD) or 25mg EOD.

I wake up feeling ok BUT the fatigue comes back about about 3 hrs upon waking up (9ishAM). Fatigue fades away at about 5-6 ish PM. Force myself to go to bed at 930-10ishPM.

 

[covino33]

I struggle with this too...caffeine seems to be the main culprit...I need to try to wean off...there is a great book call Sleep for Success forgot the author...I get a lot of good info from Dr. Mercola as well...I usually use 1-3 mgs of sublingual melatonin, 2 grams of GABA and about a gram of tryptohan

 

[Vince Carter]

Im going to try some 5-HTP, Ive been using too much melatonin, I think 5mg and I don't really sleep better with that. I sleep pretty well anyway, I think. Caffeine is a downfall, I've cut way back in the last year though. I do get a lot of caffeine in my preworkout drink though, but that's about noon with gym time. I also stopped limiting, somewhat, salt after reading about that related to Adrenals (salty/sugary cravings), and am eliminating Hydrogenated and Vegetable oils, which I use A LOT of veg oil.

 

[Sakuraba39]

I've been dealing with this for quite some time. It's been over a year and a half, how are you doing with AF, Vince?

 

[Vince Carter]

I dropped the DHEA and Preg awhile back while chasing an E problem, never found that problem and had to go with an AI but never picked back up with DHEA/Preg. I am using some Prog topical cream though and there's some glimmer of day-to-day feeling better. I eliminated hydro oils like Veg oil for Olive oil and significantly cut back the caffeine almost exclusively have caffeine only for gym purposes. I haven't done any testing in these areas, just subjective feeling.

 

[Sakuraba39]

Cutting grains and simple sugars will help, if you haven't already done so. Sea salt...perhaps aldosterone supplementation...more healthful fats... . I cut out all stimulants. It took a while to get used to.

How often are you working out? Working out so hard that you feel that you need caffeine/stimulants isn't going to help the adrenals recover. I've been there. I used to watch lifting videos and look at pics as I drank coffee before I worked out. Before long I was drinking coffee and taking a tab of ephedrine. Then I would go to the gym and do these Mentzer-type workouts.... a couple of years later I crashed hard and have never really made a complete recovery.

 

[Charliebizz]

Do you guys on this forum believe in testosterone only therapy lowering normal or low normal cortisol? It's a very grey area on all the other boards

 

[ratbag]

Yes I do. TRT needs cortisol to function normally so it's no surprise that when one starts TRT their levels drop if they were questionable to start with. There was a case I read about where a persons cortisol was so low that TRT didn't work and once they figured that out and put him on cortisol he was able to resume normal TRT treatment with success. Actually that may have been a study I read some time ago.

FYI, cortisol is the first hormone treated if you are found with insufficiency because it prevents other hormones from working properly ( ie,, TRT and Thyroid)

https://www.google.com/search?sourc....0..0j35i39k1j0i131k1j0i22i30k1.0.fgm6pdGDKz0

 

[Charliebizz]

Yes I do. TRT needs cortisol to function normally so it's no surprise that when one starts TRT their levels drop if they were questionable to start with. There was a case I read about where a persons cortisol was so low that TRT didn't work and once they figured that out and put him on cortisol he was able to resume normal TRT treatment with success. Actually that may have been a study I read some time ago.

FYI, cortisol is the first hormone treated if you are found with insufficiency because it prevents other hormones from working properly ( ie,, TRT and Thyroid)

I've read the same things.and I have without a doubt felt worse on trt in the past. But nothing has ever worked for me feeling better that should boost cortisol. Especially hydrocortisone. I've tried it a few times and all different doses. And nothing if anything I felt worse. Now I'm on trt and low dose ssri and I feel decent. I was thinking about adding hcg in to backfill the pathways but I'm not really ready to add another variable in at this time. I'm only 8 weeks into trt and based off symptoms I think my e2 is low. I guess I should just keep going and see how things play out but I always worry about my cortisol and I never want to go back to how awful I felt a few years ago. But the ssri alone wasn't enough for all my symptoms. So I'm hoping ssri and trt can finally be my answer

 

[ratbag]

I lived in a state of depression until I got all my hormones working properly. I never took SSRI's even low dose but getting my thyroid, DHEA, cortisol, progesterone levels good not only eliminated depression I actually feel upbeat and social and outgoing afterwards. Back filling those pathways with HCG eliminated all the anxiety I had and I now kick myself for taking so long to try it. Don't give up...expand on what you are doing. This may not work for everyone but if you don't try it you'll never know.

 

[Charliebizz]

My problem is I'm so nervous from my past experience with hrt years ago. We pulled out almost all the stops with one of the top docs in the field but it just didn't help much. However I was still most likely overtraining and under eating. Now I'm in a much better place in the way I feel. I'm a little over weight now still play sports but stopped lifting and dieting and I feel much better. I wasn't taking ssri for anything other then trying to help with hpa issues. I tried it from reading a lot of dr Mariano's posts and such and it seemed to help.

Hopefully now since I feel better then I did back then trt/hrt works better for me. I'm still with one of the best docs in the field so hopefully it works out this time.