I havent seen anyone address the adrenals here yet so Im going to start.
I know for a fact my adrenals have been stressed by fin. I fit every symptoms of adrenal fatigue. Ive laid off the caffeine, sweets, alcohol and as soon as I start eating it again I eventually start feeling like shit again.
Anyone else with similar experience?
Mitch
yes, i realized it was one of the contributing factors to my brain fog.
i have been taking gaba precursors and it has been helping ALOT.
l-theanine, l-glutamine, l-cartinine, GABA sublingual (although it’s reported that GABA does not pass through the blood/brain barrier, I might as well try), and a tiny amount of l-tyrosine (I noticed that it gives me headaches sometimes. I empty 2/3 of a 500mg capsule before taking it).
Through what other means can we repair our adrenals?
unfortunately, there is no magic pill to cure the adrenals.
i’ve learned that it just comes down to rest and allowing the body to heal as much as possible.
this means, avoiding alcohol and any type of stimulants. for me, this meant sacrifices. as in, not going out on the weekends, avoiding social activities, etc…
it sucked for awhile, but i’d rather be antisocial than prolong this madness.
good you guys are addressing it. how did you confirm that your adrenals were tired? Is there a way to check if mine are?
24 Hour Cortisol Test and DHEA test are the tests used to check adrenals.
i did have a dhea test done a way back but i dunno how to read into it. seems normal; DHEAS 10.8 (2.2-15.2) umol/L
i’ve never had a 24h cortisol, but the Am one i had was high: Cortisol 1145-Am 703 H (138-690) nmol/L
couple of months ago this and i’ve tried to lay off refined sugar, alcohol etc as much as i can. what do you reckon?
anyone know of a way to lower cortisol? Ive laid off sugars, caffeines etc and that has helped tremendously. Any other ideas?
Phosphatidylserine helped when my cortisol levels seemed to be attacking my brain.
After my cortisol levels felt “normal” I stopped taking it because it started to give me headaches.
How do you know it helped? Did you do an before and after test?
I am not sure if I am responding to the thread correctly or not.
L-theanine helped me great deal and maybe giving you the biggest benefit. My connective tissue is still not good and I feel my reaction caused ligament and tendon damage.
I came up with a mixture that has seemed to improve my cardio and muscle tone and possible improved some of my other adrenal symptoms.
Barley Grass, Wheat Grass, Spirulina, Chlorella and Green tea. You take it for about 3 months starting slow (not taking the full dosage). All of the items have aminos and the ability to detox the body.
how do you take these substances? Are they in capsule form, liquid?
Powder and tablets. I prefer the powder so I can just mix it the morning and evening. Many products make wild claims but I have to admit the items below seemed to have improved my cardio and muscle tone. I still feel like and old man though…brain fog, connective tissue issues, chronic fatigue like symptoms and very little desire to do anything.
The items I purchased are below can be purchased at Iherb the exception is Sun Chlorella:
Just Barley Powder
Wheat Grass powder by Pines
Spirulina by Earthrise
Green Tea Capsules by LEF (i empty a capsule into the mixture)
Chlorella Regularis by NewChapter (capsules)
just recently ordered a 3 month supply of Sun Chlorella (granuals)
Thanks John for the info.
The fact of the matter is that Finasteride absolutely affects the sex hormones and has a known mechanism of action in causing all these symptoms that does not include the adrenals.
The problem with the symptoms of Finasteride is that they fit into the potentail cause of literally dozens of conditions.
But specifically as stated we know certain mechanisms of action that relate to the cause stated above.
What makes any one here think that the adrenals are adversely affected generally by Finasteride?
Has anyone here actually been correctly tested for adrenal issues prior to commencment of such treatments to correct this supposed problem?
I believe the adrenal function may well be a contributor.
Of the few people claiming to have made a full recovery, many believe it was from improved adrenal function.
In humans the adrenals contribute to sex hormone production (i believe up to 5%, which would be a significant boost to T and potentially free T, espcecially if they can switch function as required - not sure of their full mechanism).
Unfortunately i did not have any tests taken for these early on, only a month ago.
My belief prior to the tests was that i had suffered some form of adrenal fatigue (or collapse!!) - I had 2 major stressing factors in my life while on Propecia (home & work) and I crashed out suddenly.
My theory was that my body was producing very high levels of cortisol to keep going and when these 2 major factors were removed my adrenals switched production to DHEA. With a depressed T level now accepted as the new ‘baseline’ by my body, a large proportion of this additional DHEA was converted to estrogens creating an imbalanced T:E ratio.
My Adrenal test results show:
DHEA is high >1000 pg/ml (50 to 770)
Estradiol little high at 2.5pg/ml (0.2 to 3.4)
Cortisol low at start of day 2.4ng/ml (1.5 to 15), and then drops off through the day to 0.1ng/ml at 10pm (0.2 to 2.5).
T level 486.
My SHBG level has also been recorded towards the high end but not critical, but i feel that my T:E ratio is still a bit out (hence the better responses when on the broccoli treatment), and my body is trying to get this balance back (Am using heavy weights in short sessions to try and help shift the balance).
Any thoughts??