Adrenal Fatigue | Part Two:
Is Adrenal
Fatigue “real”?
Not to most western medical doctors, but ask the patient or even an alternative doctor or healthcare practitioner and you will get a resounding, yes. In
the medical model, your adrenal glands can be functioning 20 percent below the
mean average of cortisol levels and the rest of your body can be experiencing
symptoms of adrenal fatigue, yet most mainstream physicians won't recognize
that you have a problem. So, why don't doctors recognize
adrenal fatigue? In medical school, they are only taught to look for extreme
adrenal malfunction -- Addison's Disease, which occurs when the glands produce
far too little cortisol, and Cushing's Syndrome, which stems from excessive
cortisol production. They check adrenal function by testing ACTH levels, using
a bell curve to recognize abnormal levels. This is where the problem occurs.
ACTH tests
only consider the top and bottom two (2) percent of the curve as abnormal, yet symptoms of adrenal
malfunction occur after 15 percent of the mean on both sides of the curve.
Adrenal
Fatigue is real to a lot of people. Adrenal Fatigue can be caused by chronic
exposure to stress, poor nutrition, a diet depleted of vitamins and minerals, high in sugar, caffeine, and toxins, long-term illness or untreated
conditions such as arthritis, lack of sleep, or a depressed immune system.
Contemporary lifestyles and eating habits contribute to the widespread incidence of adrenal depletion with issues ranging from mild to serious. Some of the symptoms and corollary conditions to adrenal depletion are insomnia and/or hypersomnia—a sense that one cannot get enough sleep, vulnerability to colds, aches in joints and throughout the body, general fatigue, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) or Chronic Fatigue and Immune Deficiency Syndrome(CFIDS), difficulty exerting energy, even in small spurts, poor digestion, difficulty deriving energy from food, and mental “fuzziness.”
Contemporary lifestyles and eating habits contribute to the widespread incidence of adrenal depletion with issues ranging from mild to serious. Some of the symptoms and corollary conditions to adrenal depletion are insomnia and/or hypersomnia—a sense that one cannot get enough sleep, vulnerability to colds, aches in joints and throughout the body, general fatigue, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) or Chronic Fatigue and Immune Deficiency Syndrome(CFIDS), difficulty exerting energy, even in small spurts, poor digestion, difficulty deriving energy from food, and mental “fuzziness.”
Common to
most people with Adrenal Fatigue is the use caffeine and sugar to get by. As
much as you may feel you need your three o’clock coffee and sugary snack, the
caffeine and sugar spike causes your adrenals to pump out more stress hormones,
eventually leaving your body more drained than it would have been without your
“pick-me-up.” Tomorrow we will list out the rest of
the most common recognizable ways to tell if you have Adrenal Fatigue.
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