Adrenals and Burnout
There has been some excellent progress in in treating Adrenal Fatigue in the last 3 years!
1. Adrenal Fatigue (an abnormal cortisol response) can be diagnosed as Burnout which is a medical diagnosis.
2. Treatment has moved away from just relieving the symptoms and more towards the more successful treatment of the full HPA-axis and lab testing has become more efficient. Make sure your doctor is aware of these advances.
The complexity of treating adrenal dysfunction is greatly underestimated. The adrenals are a major hormone producer effecting ever part of the mind and body. The adrenals are controlled by hormones from the brain. Very often patients with AF are emotionally worn out and just the healing process is enough to trigger a temporary crash or setback. The symptoms associated with AF are not directly related to low or high hormone levels, but rather if those levels are accurately meeting the mind and bodies needs. To much or to little of the right hormones will cause a negative reaction.
This is why a slow, low dose and full adrenal support (glandular) is the best approach, it allows the adrenals to heal completely. I have found over the last 25 years of treating 1000’s of patients that the adrenals can only truly heal at a rate of 10-15% a month and during that healing time there will be ups and downs but stay the course and you will heal.
The greatest error I see with AF sufferers is that they break their healing routine at the first bad sign rather then holding course long enough for the body to balance itself. It is unreasonable to think that a weak adrenal is going to “pop ” right back to normal, the truth is that it will dance around proper function and only over many months stabilize. If you have been jumping from one treatment to another without given the adrenals a chance to adapt you will never heal.