Help With Adrenals Please?

[Emstar1892]

Hello :)

You are all such a knowledgeable bunch, I thought I'd seek some advice.

For those who don't know, I spent a few years on a low (~40g) carb diet. I was bouncing off the walls with energy, until I started feeling lousy, slow and depressed. I then embarked on a high calorie high carb diet straight away, and caused a lot of problems for myself, as I suffered terrible hypoglycemia almost all day, and didn't sleep for months (literally) because of it - I still don't know how I survived so many sleepless months.

Since then I've improved, and balanced macronutrients seem to be key right now. Sleep is improved, not great, but nowhere near where I was. Im still very unwell though.

From salivary cortisol tests I come up moderate in the morning, low at midday, then sky high at night. So I certainly don't have addisons, however, I'm pretty sure my adrenals are throwing out cortisol with the last strength they have - I have POTS now, I nearly pass out when I rise, I crave salt and drink about 4 litres of water a day, and can't go long without food. Blood pressure is 80/59. There are some moments during the day where I honestly can't stand or speak, I feel like my heart is going to give up.

A couple of months ago I tried an NDT, as my FT4 is also low. I took half a grain a day, and a few weeks in I genuinely thought I was going to die. I lost my appetite, and fainted a couple of times in public. I developed a small calcium deposit on my face. I couldn't form sentences, I got headaches, and I lay in bed at night with a pounding heart rate.

Sadly, I also started smoking again, as sometimes it's the only thing that keeps me from collapsing - strangely it raises my FT3 slightly, and I'm sure it does other things. I wish I could stop though because although it stops me collapsing, it leaves me wired and totally weak and anxious.

I'm not sure how to recover. A part of me wonders if I'd get better with an NDT and an adrenal supplement, just to give the glands a break, but my high night cortisol scares the s*** out of me as I worry that I'll add fuel to a fire.

Please, if you have any tips to help me mover forward, do let me know.

 

[What-a-Riot]

Smoking taxes vitamin c pretty heavily, might wanna look at that and vitamin c's relevance to cortisol and the adrenal gland. Also consider vaping, I think they have blends that have all the active components of tobacco. Of course nothing's the same as smoking, and stressing over that is no good either, but nicotine's angiogenic effect coupled with the estrogenic soot and high levels of oxidative stress from the smoke really do make cigarettes a superb food for cancer

 

[What-a-Riot]

im on my phone so it's sort of a pain to fetch the links, but do a google search
site:raypeatforum.com cortisol
and add in aspirin, niacinamide, glycine, b6, vitamin a, dhea, theanine
Also I'm pretty sure caffeine doesn't raise cortisol but it does keep it elevated, so hold off on any caffeine until youve been awake a while and your first meal of the day has had time to bring it down

 

[Suikerbuik]

Those supps mentioned above can be worth trying, but how is your diet? Do you have issues with fat or some foods? 4L is quite a lot, if you feel like drinking that much add in a tsp of saturated salt solution to some glasses.
Do you have fruit juice sometimes?
I'd also suggest having baked/ mashed potatoes with salt.
For myself one NDT product didn't do anything, except suppressing TSH. So I prefer synthetic thyroid hormones and these always work; e.g. warmth, etc. (I usually have ft4 in the low ends and ft3 on the higher end of the range).

 

[Emstar1892]

Those supps mentioned above can be worth trying, but how is your diet? Do you have issues with fat or some foods? 4L is quite a lot, if you feel like drinking that much add in a tsp of saturated salt solution to some glasses.
Do you have fruit juice sometimes?
I'd also suggest having baked/ mashed potatoes with salt.
For myself one NDT product didn't do anything, except suppressing TSH. So I prefer synthetic thyroid hormones and these always work; e.g. warmth, etc. (I usually have ft4 in the low ends and ft3 on the higher end of the range).

Thank you - yes, it's weird that I feel so dehydrated all the time. It's awful - severely dry mouth to the point that my tongue gets stuck to the roof if I don't drink every half hour. I've monitored my blood glucose and am not diabetic.

I don't have fruit juice because it breaks me out in acne when I have a large concentration of sugar.

Mmmmmm potatoes. Yes to those, except I need loads of fat with them otherwise I get hypoglycemia.

My diet varies day to day, it's usually seafood, berries, coconut yoghurt, oatmeal, rice and vegetable curry.........

Interesting - are you on Levo then?

 

[Emstar1892]

im on my phone so it's sort of a pain to fetch the links, but do a google search
site:raypeatforum.com cortisol
and add in aspirin, niacinamide, glycine, b6, vitamin a, dhea, theanine
Also I'm pretty sure caffeine doesn't raise cortisol but it does keep it elevated, so hold off on any caffeine until youve been awake a while and your first meal of the day has had time to bring it down

Thank you, yes I've learned a lot from this site about cortisol. It's just tricky for me because I'm not treating low or high cortisol in isolation...i'm treating serverely low daytime cortisol and sky high cortisol at night so much of the advice that I want to take on board conflicts with itself. I just want my thyroid hormones to pick up without making me feel hyper/like I'm dying.

I agree, of course cigarettes are basically a cancer ticket, but to be honest if I don't smoke, I become bedbound and coupling that with my low thyroid and slow metabolism, it's a cancer ticket whether I'm smoking or not! I've thought about vitamin C but I worry about oxidation from supplementation. Used to take high doses and then thought again. I'm thinking about vaping, but I feel like that would just be the same adrenal stimulation, and I want to be able to not smoke without collapsing a few days into quitting Thanks again for your advice :)

I am taking a few of those, niacinimide, glycine, aspirin. I'll investigate the others. My salivary DHEA came back normal so I don't suspect that, but you could be right.

 

[Emstar1892]

I'm also really concerned about my calcium levels. The deposit on my face is quite unsightly. My diet is dairy-free because I get sick with any kind of dairy (I've tried all kinds, even raw) and I break out in cysts. I also don't supplement.

Do you think this could be a huge factor? My calcium intake is literally nothing - apart from 25% RDA that apparently comes in my magnesium supplements.

 

[What-a-Riot]

I wasn't necessarily saying to take any of those supplements, I think a great thing to do is to look at the mechanisms by which they effect cortisol and try to understand the root of any dysfunction. As for the calcium deposition, the usual first line go-tos are k2 and magnesium

 

[Emstar1892]

I wasn't necessarily saying to take any of those supplements, I think a great thing to do is to look at the mechanisms by which they effect cortisol and try to understand the root of any dysfunction. As for the calcium deposition, the usual first line go-tos are k2 and magnesium

that's what I thought, but I've been supplementing both for months and this is the first time I've ever had a calcium deposit! Crazy. The magnesium is 133% of the RDA on its own, and I already get a lot from my diet. The K2 is a good formualtion too.

Just been on cronometer and in an average day I get 250mg calcium.

Yes, sorry, I know what you meant though. And that's also what I meant - as in, I'll get onto some serious research about them :) Glycine used to lower my cortisol almost instantly, but now it gets higher when I take it. So bloomin' complicated!

 

[YuraCZ]

" I crave salt and drink about 4 litres of water a day"
So you crave salt and as answer you drink 4l of pure water? Drinking pure water flushes even more sodium(salt) from the body.. This makes your BP lower even more.. You need to add 1 tsp of sea salt to every litre of fluid that you drink.. + salting every meal. Overall you need to relax. Slow deep breathing. 5-6 meals. Foods only easy to digest. Vegetables only cooked.. Preferably no lactose, casein, gluten or too much fructose.. Search for low fodmap. It is a good for weak digestion. Which everybody has with adrenal issues..

 

[Emstar1892]

" I crave salt and drink about 4 litres of water a day"
So you crave salt and as answer you drink 4l of pure water? Drinking pure water flushes even more sodium(salt) from the body.. This makes your BP lower even more.. You need to add 1 tsp of sea salt to every litre of fluid that you drink.. + salting every meal. Overall you need to relax. Slow deep breathing. 5-6 meals. Foods only easy to digest. Vegetables only cooked.. Preferably no lactose, casein, gluten or too much fructose.. Search for low fodmap. It is a good for weak digestion. Which everybody has with adrenal issues..

Thanks :) Yes, I've never been thirsty like this before. I used to drink barely anything and be fine with a couple of teas, but since my health has gone downhill I've been partched alllll day long! And the worst thing is that (WARNING...GRAPHIC).....I also suffer from dry stools and only go like once every 3 days...so I'm certainly not overhydrating myself! It's the most unpleasant state of being

And yes I absolutely crave and add salt to everything.

Thank you for your kind words, I do try to be calm as much as I can about it. I hope you are in a good place yourself! :)

 

[YuraCZ]

Drinking plain water will only DEHYDRATE you. Like I said it flushes out all minerals and especially sodium. You need electrolytes in water.. Best is mineral water with added sea salt.. It's just another silly statement from the public. "You need to drink plain water" It is the worst thing you can do. Especially when you are sweating a lot.. It can kill you.. (hyponatremia)

 

[Emstar1892]

Drinking plain water will only DEHYDRATE you. Like I said it flushes out all minerals and especially sodium. You need electrolytes in water.. Best is mineral water with added sea salt.. It's just another silly statement from the public. "You need to drink plain water" It is the worst thing you can do. Especially when you are sweating a lot.. It can kill you.. (hyponatremia)

Yeah, I do do that, but I'm still crazy thirsty nonetheless. Aah well!

 

[Suikerbuik]

I still prefer a T4/T3 product, like cynoplus which was absolutely outstanding compared to the one I'm using now, but levo works too just less effect. Do you have recent labs, like potassium, sodium, calcium, PTH, vit. D, ..?

 

[Emstar1892]

I still prefer a T4/T3 product, like cynoplus which was absolutely outstanding compared to the one I'm using now, but levo works too just less effect. Do you have recent labs, like potassium, sodium, calcium, PTH, vit. D, ..?

I wish! I can't afford them though, sadly

 

[Suikerbuik]

That is sad indeed, Emma. My advice then is to keep a log. I guess you have forgotten what and how much you ate 3 days ago, what you did, what the supps you took and what symptoms you were suffering, etc. Don't do it that strict and don't get lost in it, but figuring out patterns might be helpful. And as you can suspect supplements to benefit you, you should also suspect any supplement to be not suitable for your current biology.

If food is a real issue, rotate protein sources for the time being and see if it does something for you. For me personaly I can have a lot dairy, like quark, yogurt, oatmeal, etc. but only 1 day of the week (sometimes twice), however if I do it more often it starts backstabbing me. The same for eggs. So either the choice of leaving it out altogether or using it appropriately, which (1) helps me to eat more (probably important in your case), (2) makes life more enjoyable, as it doesn't make me that sick anymore and opens door for eating out, and (3) hopefully learns the body to deal with it again eventually.

Aim for changing things gradually and your body will thank you for that.

Hang in there and have a great day,

Sb.