Adrenal Fatigue Treatment San Diego

Many people suffer from low energy levels, whether it’s dips in energy during the day, or low energy throughout the entire day. Fatigue can be debilitating and for many, difficult to fully understand or resolve.

What Are The Adrenals?

When exposed to a physical, mental, or emotional stressor, the brain registers this as a threat and sends signals to the adrenal glands to produce cortisol and adrenaline, which is known as a sympathetic or “fight or flight” response. This production of stress hormones prepares the body to face or run from the threat. While this survival response is extremely helpful when in life threatening situations, having this response chronically activated invariably can lead to adrenal fatigue.

What Is Adrenal Fatigue?

Adrenal fatigue is not technically a disease but a functional illness or imbalance.

This does not make adrenal fatigue a fictional problem, but simply that it is currently not recognized by most conventionally trained doctors.

Adrenal fatigue essentially is characterized by imbalanced levels of cortisol in the body, typically paired with imbalances in sex hormones like DHEA, testosterone, progesterone, or estrogen.

Adrenal fatigue can mimic many conditions and is sometimes hard to detect, especially if the practitioner is not looking for it. However, patients with adrenal fatigue generally present with a myriad of symptoms and these, along with proper testing, can help differentiate it.

Symptoms Of Adrenal Fatigue

Symptoms of adrenal fatigue can include:

Fatigue in the morning despite adequate sleep
Difficulty falling asleep and/or staying asleep
An afternoon crash around 2-3pm
Needing coffee or other stimulants in the morning to get going
Fluctuations in energy levels throughout the day
Mood swings
Depressed mood
Low motivation
Brain fog
Insulin resistance
Crave sweet or salty foods
Muscle or bone loss
Lightheadedness upon standing
Chronic fatigue
Decreased libido

Adrenal fatigue can present with a wide range of symptoms ranging from energy issues, to mental emotional challenges, food cravings, to brain fog and lightheadedness.

Dealing With Adrneal Fatigue? Let’s Asses Your Physical And Mental Levels

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Naturopathic Approach For Adrenal Fatigue

Supporting The Adrenals Using A Naturopathic Approach

Supporting the adrenals using a naturopathic approach involves key lifestyle factors like sleep and stress as well as the use of targeted nutraceuticals. Below are several factors to consider when treating adrenal fatigue:

Stress relief techniques like yoga, tai chi, walking in nature, or meditation can be extremely helpful in patients suffering from adrenal fatigue.

Any of these methods helps to lower the stress response and shift the body out of the fight or flight mode. Oftentimes this fight or flight response seems natural to us, so it may take some time to retrain the body and mind into the state of calm and relaxation.

Sleep can often become disrupted from adrenal fatigue and it becomes even more important to have a regular sleep routine and time to unwind each night.

Turning off electronics for at least one hour before bed and sleeping in a completely dark room can help. Depending on the stage of adrenal fatigue, various herbs or supplements may be used to help optimize sleep.

Adaptogenic herbs like ashwagandha, rhodiola, or ginseng may be used to help normalize adrenal function. These herbs have been used for thousands of years and can really make a big difference for many patients. These herbs help the body respond to stress and come back into equilibrium more quickly.

B vitamins are cofactors for hormone and neurotransmitter production and are necessary for the body to produce energy.

They can quickly be depleted with chronic stress. B5, or pantothenic acid, is crucial for supporting the adrenals.

Reducing or eliminating caffeine (for a period of time) can be helpful since caffeine stimulates the stress response and cortisol release.

By reducing caffeine, we are giving our adrenal glands and nervous system some much needed rest and recuperation.

Diaphragmatic breathing can stimulate the parasympathetic “rest and digest” nervous system, the opposite of the “fight or flight” system. By consciously using our breath, we can train our nervous system to operate in a more relaxed manner, reducing our stress response and ultimately lowering the burden on our adrenal glands.

Testing For Adrenal Fatigue:

Serum cortisol
4 point salivary cortisol
6 point salivary cortisol (including cortisol awakening response)
ACTH
Pregnenolone
Sex steroids i.e. testosterone, progesterone, estrogen, DHEA-s
Melatonin
Cortisol/DHEA ratio
Urinary free cortisol

Stages of Adrenal Fatigue

There are 3 stages of adrenal fatigue depending on the length of time under stress and the severity of stressors incurred. People generally start in stage 1 and progress over time to stage 2, and eventually to stage 3. The 3 stages are as follows:

Stage 1: Arousal or Alarm Phase

This is the initial phase of adrenal fatigue and is a normal response to stress
Cortisol and DHEA generally rise in this stage
Anxiety, IBS, insomnia may be present

Stage 2: Resistance, Adaptation, or Early Decompensation Phase

This is the second phase of adrenal fatigue and can generally be present for months to even several years
Cortisol typically increases and may be elevated throughout the day
DHEA levels may be normal or can start to decline

Stage 3: Exhaustion or Late Decompensation Phase

This is the final stage of adrenal fatigue, and is usually the consequence of years of prolonged stress or can occur more quickly as a result of significant stressors i.e. loss of a family member or other major traumatic event
Cortisol and DHEA are generally bottomed out
Depressed mood and exhaustion are generally seen in this phase

Adrenal Fatigue And Sexual Dysfunction

When stress hormones are imbalanced, sex hormones can become imbalanced. These imbalanced sex hormones are a result of what is known as the “cortisol or pregnenolone steal”. What this means is that the sex hormone precursor called pregnenolone (derived from cholesterol) can go down one of two pathways.

The first pathway involves pregnenolone turning into DHEA which in turn is used to produce testosterone and estrogen. The second pathway involves pregnenolone turning into cortisol.

By having chronically elevated stress levels, the body is forced into producing cortisol while reducing its sex hormone production, which can lead to sexual dysfunction in the long term.

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