Posted by bleauberry on February 26, 2009, at 17:02:19
In reply to Ambien withdrawal, posted by G-man885858 on February 26, 2009, at 0:45:45
Adrenal fatigue is common in many diseases that cause bodily stress. It is common and probably largely undiagnosed in the general population, with the causes being lousy food choices, hectic schedules, stress bombardment, drugs or alcohol, 21st century competition, some prescriptions, and irregular sleep routines.
I've spent hundreds of hours at forums that deal with this topic. Basically it can be summed up like this...
Everyone finds something helpful, but it is different for each person. For some, simple things like licorice root extract (slows the breakdown of existing cortisol) is helpful. For others they find Isocort more helpful. For some they take a combination of both. Others prefer a different brand of adrenal cortex extract. Other supposed adrenal herbs hardly ever do anyone any good, so don't even go that route. Waste of time and health. But for a majority, they usually end up with the real deal...hydrocortisone in doses ranging from 5mg to 20mg per day total.
Hydrocortisone was the only one I could tolerate with any kind of good effect. I only took 2.5mg because I'm sensitive, and started at 1.25mg. I tell you what, it completely kicked anxiety's butt. Calm calm calm.
I have had this strange symptom for years of going to bed tired and sleepy, sleeping fine, but as soon as I wake up I am engulfed in an unprovoked unjustified state of anxiety, nervousness, fear, almost panic attack. Feels very insane-like. Then it goes away on its own in an hour or two. Like clockwork. Very predictable. It wasn't until I had the saliva cortisol test that we could see why. My cortisol was very low during 3 of the 4 readings, but was very high at the time I wake up. The tiny HC dose I took created a feedback mechanism that not only lifted up the low values of the daytime, but also squashed down the high values at waking. It was so nice to wake up calm and serene. As my doc stated, my adrenals blew their wad first thing in the morning and then were pooped out all day. The daytime dose fixed that and also prevented the adrenals from accidentally overdoing it every morning.
Another route to accomplish the same thing sounds weird but works. That is, something that is a strong norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor. Cymbalta was not strong enough on NE, but helped some; Nortriptyline had an allergic reaction; Milnacipran worked very well. All had an initial worsening during the first 3 days which quickly turned around into calmness. I found SSRIs useless as they seemed to squash cortisol even lower than it was.
The whole idea of cortisol supplementation is to give the adrenals a rest, take some stress off them, and to raise body levels up to normal so you can heal. Most people end up weaning off it carefully after 6 months to a year and things stay fine after that as long as they respect well-prepared diets and lifestyles that don't allow the adrenals to be overstressed again.
Anyway, in terms of sleep, withdrawals, and anxiety, I have never had anything work as well as a tiny dose of HC.
poster:bleauberry
thread:882553
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20090223/msgs/882672.html