DHEA for poor adrenals

[stellaJewels]

I know there's several people here that are dealing with Adrenal Fatigue, so I thought I'd share my latest discovery...

I have Addison's Disease and have been searching for something to help with my myriad of symptoms. A book I read mentioned that DHEA is a precursor to the adrenal hormones and is vegan and not too pricey, so I gave it a shot... It works!! I've been taking 5mg a day (1 pill) and it's really made a difference. Nothing huge or earth-shattering, and certainly not a 'cure', but I've had more energy, less anxiety, sleeping better, better mood, less stomach problems, and less dry skin. I've taken it every day for about 2 weeks, but forgot yesterday and definitely noticed a difference without it.

So if you have poor adrenals read up on DHEA! Make sure you research first though because it does have warnings and possible side effects

Hope this helps someone out there!:D

[Lara]

for the tip... I will definitely check into it, as I'm sure my adrenals could use a good boost.

[luckitri]

Yes I had Addison's after suffering Cushing's for so many years that the other adrenal went into hibernation. It had to be surgically removed. So for any of you who have doubled your body weight in a years time and the docs seem clueless - insist on being checked for Cushing's.

For me, when I stated my other symptoms - like sleep difficulties - they just called me manic, bi-polar and the like. Many people die of the Cushing's for this reason. Also the doctors ALL treated me disdainfully like a slovenly pig for letting my figure go and simply refused to believe that it was a medical problem. When I showed them other symptoms like my vibrantly brilliant purple colored breasts it simply did not compute - guess they weren't trained on that in school. They still sent me to psych for purple breasts! Ha ha!

Since then I have been sent to psych for being unable to walk! (That is another medical problem.) In that case the psych gave me a bunch of labels but thank God I got sent to another doc who found the real problem and when legal entities began inquiring to that psych about why I was unable to work - she was stuck in a quandary and found herself unable to comply. She realized that she had done me a criminally negligent mis-service by failing to help my sort out my physical not psych problems and yet she did not care to alter her original records either. These doctors can be NUTZ! Don't fall for the psych trap - you can be caught in it for years. I think that wayyyy too many physical problems are called psych. I always tell my story to encourage readers to keep seeking!

Anyways the DHEA was recommended by both allopathic endocrinologist and alternate practitioners. Also salt water made with seasalt in ration recommended by Dr. Batmangelidj - http://www.watercure2.org/ don't know why the link is not working - google watercure. I won't say it is the cure all because I don't think that it is but even the endocrinologist recommended the seasalt water and was very impressed that I was already doing it.

Edit: I see the link works.

Oh yeah, P.S. The doctors still think I am psych instantly. When I write on their paper that I had both Cushing's & Addison's they immediately judge me as a nut ignorantly throwing terms around. Once I explain -if given the chance, then they get the logic of what happened. Don't let a doctor do the instantaneous judgment thing to you!

[streetsurfer]

Don't fall for the psych trap - you can be caught in it for years. I think that wayyyy too many physical problems are called psych. I always tell my story to encourage readers to keep seeking!


I am so sorry they ran you through this wringer. It almost happened to me over similar issues. I was a normal weight, but felt like I was wasting away. Being that outward appearances did not indicate I could be feeling as bad as I was reporting, I got the same thing..."I want you to see the psychiatrist". That response came from several doctors, and was partly because I had armed myself with the information I thought I needed to get good care-names of the conditions I suspected, proof in the way of a detailed history of my decline, and request for a plan of attack that I thought might help speed up the process of recovery. I became partially educated, or well informed on certain health issues without having gone to medical school, and they don't like that. I think to them, this indicates a classic sign of one feigning illness, or a malingerer. Fortunately the psychiatrist I saw listened well, understood and accepted my firm belief that there were underlying physiological causes and recommended I pursue them first, but included that I was welcome back to talk with him.

I give a little of my story to re-enforce what you said. Keep Seeking! If you are not comfortable with what one doctor tells you or six, find the one that listens like you think he/she should, and one that is well versed in treating the conditions you have or you suspect you have. You may even need to go to a different area to look for a doctor. While the very large and busy metropolitan area I am in should have plenty of great doctors, mechanics, lawyers contractors, bakers, indian chiefs, etc., (whatever professional you happen to be looking for) in it, it also becomes a breeding ground of many less than professional individiuals who have fallen to being in it solely for the money and have lost focus of they quality of care or craftsmanship they are expected to provide. Get help from someone you can trust, with your search. When one is so ill they have a hard time managing their life, it is very difficult sorting through the dross to find the gems.

[luckitri]

Thank you fellow traveler!

I think that so many get caught in this trap for years and some lose their life to it. The problem with our current legal/medical system is that the only legally recognized care options are those that some of us consider dangerous and just as life-threatening as the condition.

Witness the situation of Rawtruth who cannot be approved for disability payments while she is unable to work due to cancer and her non-approved alternate treatments. Why I can't get too engaged in the health care reform debate until these issues that are very real to me get addressed.

http://www.rawfoodtalk.com/showthread.php?t=54562

OK, I fear that I am getting too political for this forum but these are issues that are of importance to be aware of so why I risk.

Peace, truth and love!

[stellaJewels]

Yup, the "doctors" all tried to diagnose me with depression for many years, but I refused the meds. I got worse and worse as the years went by until someone finally did simple bloodwork and found my cortisol levels were life-threateningly low. Now they think I'm nuts for trying to heal myself and refusing their meds again after they almost killed me by destroying my immune system...

I found a poem somewhere that you guys might relate to ...

I pray this will find you, oh severely sleep deprived and desperate of heart, mind and strength.
May you know you are not alone and there are others.
You are not alone and there are others.
Others who suffer just like you.

Severe adrenal fatigue will take you to a place of the living dead. A place beyond your self in the land of long, continuous hours of being awake where your eyes will become dry from being open so long and vision will blur.

You will know the torment of being so very, very exhausted yet unable to fall asleep; the pain, anguish and extreme edginess of a body in the mode of survival, running thru the adrenaline system.
Organs will slow their functioning in efforts to survive.

You will know what it's like to see all hours of the darkness from the windows of the bed you can't get up from. Strange swelling of your fingers and under your eyebrows and other places will scare you as you wonder if your heart can handle another round of the extra fluid that just leaked out of your cells and into your tissue. You'll have to learn to deal not only with the emotions, but the physical symptoms that come from low blood sugar and low cortisol levels. You'll study and study and study to learn more and to help yourself, but still you won't have the experience it takes to heal.

Friends and family won't be able to understand how incapacitating severe adrenal fatigue can be. You'll miss events and functions you once relished, but now have to forgo as you have only the strength to be in bed.

Relationships will be strained as you are hyper-vigilant and irritable and have waves of emotion hit wash over you. And you will feel guilty for how you responded and won't even understand how the words could come out of you as it never had before. Patience & tolerance will be greatly reduced.

You may sink into bouts of stinging tears before you know you are low on certain chemicals your brain needs to keep you from being depressed. All this while running on no sleep for days.
You may loose the love of your life because they can't deal with it any more. Or you could feel the weight of ever increasing medical debt as you are unable to work or even truly be.
You'll fight with the medical establishment, doctors, doctor's staff with their incompetence and their greed while you fight to survive. Not only will you be mis-understood and mis-diagnosed when you know you have adrenal fatigue and you tell them.....
Your medical care will more than likely be mis-managed when you do seek the care you so desperately need and your condition may even be made worse. And still you suffer. Yet, you long to be well and have a life again or even just to SLEEP!!!
The loneliness, the isolation, the hopelessness, the desperation. The constant, severe pain from inflammation will wear you down at times and land you flat on the floor for hours. Still you search for answers and HELP.

[luckitri]

OMG. I so know this. It is sad that we as a people are still so primitive that we cannot believe that one we profess to love is ill if we don't see a broken bone - we still have to have something that we can see! I have lost "best friends" to this and been slandered incessantly by co-workers who do not need to understand - they just need to be civilized and realize that they can still respect that which they don't understand - but no our civilization has deteriorated from that given. So many wish to find unfairness and be watchdogs and prosecute it so on the job the co-workers think that you are being given special privilege because they don't understand your medical - or as is the case with the adrenals, that your/their constant antagonistic ways are rife in the air and make you even worse.

The doctors have no excuse for their primitive attitudes. They HAVE the education.

I had to take the steroids for years to stay alive. After they removed the diseased adrenal the other one was dead for so many years that I would have died that day had I not accepted the steroids. One day I got a miracle but honestly I have been so ill the last couple of years that it may well be part of this same problem.

The steroids kill the adrenal so it is very dangerous to take them because then you may be stuck on them for the rest of your life. And maybe the doctors don't understand but the steroids have many negative effects that are obviously not taught to them.

I wish I had some answers for you. Other things to support the adrenal.

[stellaJewels]

Oh and the book I read and really liked is called Feeling Fat, Fuzzy, or Frazzled? by Richard and Karilee Shames. It talks about the balance between adrenal, thyroid and reproductive hormones and offers a lot of alternative remedies. Even my little small-town library has it so should be easy to find. Please post any good book recommendations as I love to read!

I'm trying Ashwaganda now too (as of yesterday), anyone else try that one? It's supposed to be a good adrenal/thyroid tonic, and helps your body convert T4 into T3. I'll post my results with it...

[luckitri]

Oooh Thanks!

[stellaJewels]

Wow your co-workers sound like some of my family members... It took me almost dying and weighing 82 lbs for some of them to finally grasp the idea that maybe I was actually sick and not just a head case. Glad there's people here who understand!!

Steroids are soooo scary. I would have died without them too, but almost died from them as well! They're the worst double-edged sword ever...

[streetsurfer]

So much of what each of you has said rings true with me and my case. I have not officially been diagosed with low adrenal function. Am I crazy to deduce by myself that it is part of my problem? If so, then they can call me crazy or in need or pshychriatric care. I will still treat that naturally as opposed to with drugs. I choose to treat it with nutrition. Nutrition from food and food supplements/ingredients. Whole Live and Raw nutrients, not reverse engineered synthetically compounded chemicals simulating nutrients

the finger swelling....how funny you mention that. I have never come across a cause for it before in any reading, or as something others experience. Everybody to this point has told me it is just dry skin from the winter. My fingertips swell to the point they split when they are accidentally bumped into a door knob, or when I floss my teeth, grab a zipper pull, push them into a pocket, or try to tie a shoe, with deep raw bleeding cracks that wont heal for weeks, that make it difficult to get dressed, pick up coins, work on equipment, do normal tasks; they become hard and sort of lost in space as far as tactile feel and proprioception go-swollen and hard like an apple and super sensitive to pain, heat, and cold, as opposed to soft with the normal sensitivity to touch that allows you to pick up a dime or button a shirt. Is this what you see? The affected ones become visibly larger than the opposing unaffected finger or thumb of the other hand., and kind of callous like with dry cracking and thickened skin.

[luckitri]

I did have finger swelling but not that bad.

It is horrible because you just have to keep going and going and going till you finally get one that clues in. This year a family member with a heart condition had his ears so swollen that you could not see the hole to the ear canal. The doctors could not see it. They did not say - Well we see it but we don't know what it means. They professed not to see it. A medical intuitive healed him.

I would not self-diagnose from reading something that sounds the same on this forum streetsurfer. Natural products do not mean they are safe if mis-applied meaning applied to the wrong condition and you could put yourself to death taking this approach. Actually a sibling of mine was just hospitalized with heart attack symptoms caused by an herbal tea drunk in excess. The herb it turns out, is dehydrating despite drinking lots of it.

Play it safe and find some kind of healer.

[huumingh]

Unlike water-soluble vitamins such as C or B-complex that need to be taken daily, oil soluble vitamins and nutrients do not require daily consumption. You may use a small quantity of this dressing daily or a larger quantity every once in a while. Enjoy and use in good health!

[stellaJewels]

Oh the lovely finger swelling... Last year it was so bad all my fingertips split open...
http://stellajewels.com/fingers.png

I made a lotion with coconut oil, shea butter (NOW brand is soft so no need to heat it) with lavender EO and a little Tea Tree Oil. After trying everything on them, this finally worked, and still does. I have to slather myself with this and/or plain coconut oil because my skin is so dry.

I don't think you should self-diagnose either, especially since your symptoms may seem like they're coming from one gland, but are actually from another. Example: I have very dry skin and leg swelling and low temperature. Sounds like low thyroid, but is because of low adrenal hormones which are causing low thyroid.... That doesn't mean you have to go to a doctor though. The book I mentioned talks of labs where you can send saliva tests without a doctor, so maybe you could do that so you'd know for sure what the cause is. Makes healing a lot easier when you know what to target...

[luckitri]

I feel the need to step back from this one as there are so many possible causes of this symptom. Depending on your age there are many more variables. Keep seeking and report back if you get an answer! Then we all will know more.

Yes the doctor's tests are useful to help pinpoint the cause but of course you do not need to accept their solution. This drives some doctors batty and they will dump you as a patient because you are "non-compliant." This whole thing of patient dumping has been one of my pet peeves of late. Obviously the doctors feel that it is a real career-killer to go up against the insurance/pharmaceutical strength. Anyway this patient dumping practice really drives up the cost of health care for everybody and it is not relegated to the homeless and uninsured. Many of us are like collateral damage from the big pharma wars and I doubt that they are ignorant of our existence - we are an acceptable casualty of war to them.