Women's Health Series: Episode 2: Adrenals, the understated hero
Adrenal fatigue doesn't happen overnight
Maybe you have heard of this term, adrenal fatigue, or maybe not. There’s a lot of controversy around it in the medical world or rather stated more clearly, skepticism. Many Western practitioners say there is no such thing. I’m not here to “prove” to you whether it exists, only you can do that. This post will focus on how cortisol plays a part, what symptoms accompany it, and some of the key components.
Time for a quick anatomy lesson. Adrenal glands (which are the glands short-circuiting in adrenal fatigue) are located above the kidneys and are responsible for producing a bunch of different hormones. The list includes: cortisol, aldosterone, adrenaline, noradrenaline, and the precursors to progesterone, estrogen, and testosterone. The roles they help with include the following:
Turning food into energy and managing blood sugar levels
Balancing salt and water
Keeping blood pressure normal
Responding to illness and stress (your "fight or flight" response)
Timing when and how fast a child develops sexually
Supporting pregnancy
Managing stress and inflammation
This is a very surface-level explanation of the roles because of the myriad of jobs those aforementioned hormones play in the body, but it’s safe to say if the adrenal glands are not happy ain’t nobody happy. 😅 It occurs to me that it would be helpful to do a blog post overviewing the roles these hormones play. That will be next, definitely watch for that one because I promise you are gonna be shocked 🫨at how much these chemicals are running your body.
Intuition and desire lead the way
So what got me interested in learning more about this particular disorder is my own aha about recognizing my health history reflects a lot of association with unhappy adrenals. That ship is sailing⛵ because this girl is changing the story. 😉 As I pull back the curtain on what all the adrenals do along with my own moments of intuition I continue to be astounded at how many symptoms point at this. For example on a hunch just now, it occurred to me to check whether Vitamin D conversion was related to the adrenal gland. It is indeed. Why would I ask this question? Well every year for several years now, I have dealt with seasonal depression. I tried sun lamps, and vitamin D drops, nothin’ worked except sunshine. So my inquiring mind began asking what gives? What is so special about sunshine? Honestly, I still don’t have a clear answer (although sunshine produces a lot more nutrients in the body than just Vitamin D 🫨🤔). What I learned in the meantime though will contribute to another post on seasonal depression and the correlation with testosterone. 🤔Yep, bet you weren’t expecting that one, but I digress. So why adrenal fatigue?
My story
What were the other telltale signs that caused me to self-diagnose this was the culprit? A quick medical history for you (and no my ego is not a fan of sharing, but if it helps someone learn early on, awesome). From the time I started menstruating, I had terrible pain with each cycle and extremely heavy bleeding, both of which I recently learned are associated with a lack of progesterone, but wait there’s more, lol. I also struggled with lots of blood sugar control issues (one of the many lesser-known roles of progesterone is blood sugar management), usually on the side of hypoglycemia, and though my mom had me tested numerous times for diabetes, it always showed normal. The trouble with the progesterone continued as I prepared to have children, which resulted in 3 miscarriages over several years. My blood sugar issues continued to worsen to the point where I was convinced that I had hypothyroidism. Again tests were run, results were “normal”. This went on for years (and ironically after years of being dismissed by the doctors when I was diagnosed with colon cancer many years later, I was “forced” on thyroid medication or alternatively not be eligible for a lifesaving surgery. And yes there’s a correlation between colon cancer and hormone health. Many cancers for that matter. I’ll share that in another post). Left to my own devices, I radically changed my diet as a means of taking control of my health journey (this was really the beginning of my lifelong obsession with nutrition and health management). The diet did indeed help stave off a lot of symptoms, but it still wasn’t solving the core problem (spoiler alert, it’s not just a dysfunctional body part). Another symptom I dealt with was low blood pressure and while that might seem like a “nice” problem to have, it came with foot cramps, head rushes, and extreme responses to physical “trauma” such as childbirth where it would dip so low they thought I was going to pass out. So while I continued to eat a stellar diet, exercise and choose wisely what went in my body, my symptoms continued to grow.
Why am I spelling out so much of my medical history here? Again because maybe something will jump out and cause you to have an aha before you reach full-blown struggle.
Why diet wasn’t the whole solution
Here’s why. When you hit menopause (or even peri for that matter) your ovaries stop (or slow down drastically leading up to it) producing estrogen, testosterone, and progesterone. (Before you discount that this is you, consider that perimenopause can start in your thirties. Mine did. That was when I started getting my thyroid tested.) That leaves the job entirely to the adrenal glands. So if your adrenals are overloaded for any reason for a lengthy amount of time, then it sets the stage for adrenal fatigue. Let’s look at some factors contributing to overtaxing the adrenals.
Inflammation (chronic)
Excessive or long-term stress (uh raise your hand if that’s ever been a problem, lol 🙋🏻♀️)
Infections
Toxins (uh yeah, lol, don’t even need to ask, just read a label of anything you eat that didn’t come straight from the ground or for that matter, used for hygiene or beauty.)
Excessive exercise (a very subjective term, excessive, in this case, depends on how unhappy the adrenals were to begin with)
Caffeine, excessive sugar, alcohol and poor diet (lack of nutrients)
Lack of sleep
Steroids (Did I mention I was on steroids for asthma for years as a young child?)
Food sensitivities (had boatloads and this was related to leaky gut leading to autoimmune disease and wait for it…..)
Autoimmune disease (yep had that one too)
So now that we know what can upset the adrenals, let’s talk about what adrenal fatigue looks like.
Symptoms of adrenal fatigue include:
Tiredness: Feeling tired and fatigued all the time
Trouble sleeping: Having trouble falling asleep or waking up in the morning
Cravings: Craving salt or sugar
Stimulants: Needing stimulants like caffeine to get through the day
Weight gain: Gaining weight
Stress: Having difficulty handling stress
Immune system: Having a weakened immune system
trouble waking up in the morning
hormone imbalance
leaky gut
gut dysbiosis
I.B.S.
Obviously, all of these symptoms can be associated with other things. It’s important to look at your situation with discernment. (Disclaimer- not only am I not licensed to give medical advice but as previously mentioned scientists discredit this diagnosis because it has been “proven”. Hmmm, to my knowledge many things they say haven’t been proven 😂😉).
My aha moment
So what brought about this brilliant discovery for me? I’ve read and attempted to address it in the past. I dismissed it in favor of improving the leaky gut situation. I made some progress on that and then menopause kicked in full force and body slammed me, then kicked the shit out of me a few times, lol.
I studied, experimented, tried this supplement, now that one, no that wasn’t it, lol, maybe go back over here. I invested so much energy into this, I wrote and taught a course on it. Toward the tail end of the course, I found a book called The Woman Code. Whaaaat??? Where have you been my whole life???
I realized as I shared in my last post in this series that my thoughts were playing a huge part. The author talked about her own research and life experience to overcome PCOS, which led to a greater understanding of the adrenals. While listening to her book, again I was drawn to the adrenals that answered every one of the symptoms I was having. This time, though, besides recognizing how much my thoughts play a part in this, I also realized the pattern of thoughts that were the culprits.
She discusses how feminine energy, associated with certain ways of being, is out of balance when you have a hormone imbalance. (remember my adrenal fatigue symptoms kicked into overdrive during menopause). The characteristic that stood out for me with the feminine energy that I resist (and for those of you who know me well, you may find this ironic) is chaos or uncertainty. Masculine energy conversely embraces logic and order. (My “preferred” version of me that was held in high esteem for many years). Though menopause has at times rendered me a stark raving maniac, it occurred to me that these emotions were waiting (for a very, very long time) to be expressed, and then once the monster was released there was no scaling it back 😂.
Not really, I am grateful to say that I am now choosing to mindfully embrace uncertainty and monitor my self-talk for pesky not-worthy thoughts or out-of-control overthinking about what will be. (A quick recap though, my menopause journey has included severe depression, exhaustion to the point of not working for months and no desire to, crying, screaming, giddiness, and all of the “typical” (and a few not-so-typical) physical symptoms: hot flashes, night sweats, low sex drive, inability to sleep, foot cramps, hives, stink(ier) sweat 😅). I also found a supplement that is helping support my adrenals. So my self-care plan is to love myself unconditionally, stay present, eat healthy, exercise according to my needs, and not take 2 aspirin and call anyone, lol. I am rewriting the story. I would love to support you in helping you rewrite yours 😊 Just remember, there’s always an alternative.
References
https://medlineplus.gov/adrenalglanddisorders.html#:~:text=What%20are%20adrenal%20glands?,Supporting%20pregnancy