Posted by bleauberry on May 31, 2010, at 18:04:19
In reply to Re: Best meds. to raise cortisol/ACTH? » bleauberry, posted by whitmore on May 30, 2010, at 23:04:29
It sounds like a complicated case.
Though I am not at all bringing up the topic of lyme, I did want to comment that any antibody test of lyme is about as useless as a pure guess. Lyme doesn't work that way. Those tests are of no value, despite their common usage.Any lyme expert can explain the ins and outs of that topic.
I wonder about the heavy metal test. Was it a provoked urine test? That is, urine sample, followed by a large DMSA dose, followed by 6 hours of urine collection after that dose? That is the only test that shows what metals are within your tissues. A blood test will not show the metals, because that's not where they reside except on exposure within the most recent 72 hours.
Sometimes even that test is not accurate, because DMSA can peel away layers of metals like an onion...the first layer might be copper but not lead or mercury. Those would come later after the copper was down. But most of the time, this test is quite revealing.
If you did the hair test, that is very tricky to read. Mine for example. The first showed high lead and mercury. I thought it was all bogus. I didn't buy into it. Two years later, the same test showed no lead, no mercury, and very oddly, not much of any other normal metals either. Then I did the DMSA urine test. Wow. Mercury was in the red, and lead was even higher than that. I still have no clue where the lead came from. It was a rather startling discovery that was not evident in either a blood test or a hair test.
Over time, mercury can so bizarrely mess up the transport of metals for normal bodily function that it even prevents its own movement into hair. Tricky tests to interpret.
Adrenal stimulation. Hmmm. I just haven't come across that topic before. Well, I wonder, what about something like Ritalin? Why not an outright stimulant?
Other than that, I would still put a vote in for longterm Eleuthero tincture.
The only thing I am aware of that screws up the pituitary in the manner you describe is, well, heavy metals. With hardly any education on the topic, my first guess for stimulating the pituitary would be a stimulant like ritalin. ???
I do hope you get some answers. Someone somewhere must have some info that will be very enlightening for you. The best I can do is clarify some of the common errors in diagnosing lyme and heavy metals.
> I appreciate your lengthy reply, but I do not have adrenal fatigue as evidenced by prior ACTH stimulation test. My current physician concurs. I have secondary adrenal insufficiency caused by too little ACTH being produced by my pituitary. The root cause of this is unknown, but I suspect early childhood trauma coupled with genetic suseptability. Low dose HC makes matters worse in my case. The ACTH feedback loop senses cortisol and turns down ACTH production--but more than it should, so I'm actually worse off. Licorice also causes ACTH suppression--again, worse off. My adrenals do not need to rest, they need more stimulation. Isocort has been tried--same result. So really full replacement is required if I am to go the HC route. That having been said, my dose is not completely off the wall. I am an avid exerciser and have a high pressure job. However, I am looking for alternatives for multiple reasons. Firstly, I feel uncomfortable creating Addison's in myself and secondly I am uneasy doing something that is considered so dangerous by mainstream medicine. ACTH injections are an option which I'm looking into, but I'm wondering if there are any meds. apart from SSRI's which result in an ACTH increase. I have no Lyme antibodies and no evidence of heavy metal burden--tests have all been done.
poster:bleauberry
thread:949506
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20100524/msgs/949659.html