[Raspberry]

#1059947

Has anyone here explored or know about sources on the adrenal thyroid connection? I’ve been doing some searching and found many who say that if the adrenal hormone cortisol is high or low that it makes tolerating thyroid hormone changes (usually these are people on replacement) quite difficult. Also that it directly can interfere with TSH activity and T4->T3 conversion. I asked my endo some time ago about “adrenal insufficiency” and got a big lecture that it was bunk that only naturopaths believed in and that only Addison’s disease was worth worrying about. Still I can’t help but wonder given that I was under massive chronic stress during my hypo years and big time stressors leading into the Graves and cortisol is THE stress hormone that it has some role to play?

[Kimberly]

#1178969

Hello – There is certainly a link between stress and physical health, which has been confirmed in numerous research studies. However, the medical establishment generally does not support a diagnosis of “adrenal fatigue.” Here are a couple of resources from the Mayo Clinic and from the Hormone Health Network (the educational branch of the Endocrine Society).

(Note on links: if you click directly on the following link, you will need to use your browser’s “back” button to return to the boards after viewing, or you will have to log back in to the forum. As an alternative, you can right-click the link and open it in a new tab or new window).

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/adrenal-fatigue/AN01583

http://www.hormone.org/Resources/upload/adrenal-insufficiency-bilingual-081810.pdf

Of course, this is certainly an area of controversy. Some alternative practitioners claim that adrenal fatigue will one day be recognized like conditions such as fibromyalgia, which was initially written off by the medical establishment. However, the medical establishment counters that adrenal fatigue is a bogus diagnosis that some unethical practitioners use to sell supplements.

I wish I could provide a more concrete answer!

[Harpy]

#1178970

Throughout our entire history the medical and scientific establishment of the time has been proven wrong, that is a simple process of aquiring knowledge.

“Absence of evidence does not mean evidence of Absence”

Think about the round earth theory people were persecuted and killed for that.
What about leeches in medicine, used in the dark ages through to 1800’s, then laughed off for the last 200 years, guess what, they’ve started using them again in specific areas.
What about the progression of Gluten in disease, Coeliac disease is a classic example, partial damage of GI villi, no not coeliac, significant damage, no not coeliac, complete destruction of villi in your GI tract, yes that’s better we can conclusively say you now have coeliac disease.
Non Coeliac gluten sensitivity was also dismissed for many years before it was finally recognised that not all individuals have to have complete atrophy of their villi to have an adverse reaction to gluten.
Now we have non Gliadin Gluten/wheat sensitivity, they are only just starting to accept that there is a vast number of different proteins in wheat, not just Gliadin, that our bodies produce antibodies towards and in some individuals they do have negative consequences.
Then there is the thyroid stuff,
The addition of T3 hormone to thyroxine for improved outcomes in some cases.
Testing for FT3 in treatment protocols.
Antibody testing as a milestone for the remission process.
All these are slowly filtering into the medical establishment because of external pressure.

We only see what we test for, there is a vast amount of activities and antibodies floating around in our bodies that the medical profession is unaware of, just because we aren’t aware of them and don’t test for them doesn’t mean they aren’t there and having an effect, maybe good, maybe bad.

Having said that there is the consideration of processing evidence, yes scientific evidence has a much greater weighting as there has been significant work done to conclusively show some effect or outcome, but that does not mean that we do not give any weighting to other types of evidence.
If the circumstantial evidence is weak, ie an isolated group of limited number of individuals, then yes discount it, but if it is strong and widespread then you need to at the very least consider there may be something to it, judge with a critical eye, it’s not conclusive proof, it’s still suspicion.
Then there is the evidence of experience and history as I outlined first, our experience shows that the establishment can be wrong and has been wrong very often, then there is a possibility that they may well be wrong about Adrenal Fatigue as well, only time will tell.

I’d venture a guess that not one of those doctors who dismisses Adrenal Fatigue or any other naturopathic suggestion has tried to do any research on the topic and come to an informed decision, their assumption is simply that they and their profession know all there is to know about the Human Body and everything else is irrelevant.

I’ve always wanted to ask what other functions TSH plays in the body as there are TSH receptors scattered throughout the body in tissues and organs, yet have seen little research determining it’s functions outside of the thyroid, but alas I don’t think that question would be well recieved.

[vanillasky]

#1178971

When I have asked about the connection between thyroid and adrenal glands, all I get is nothing.

I tried to explain to the endo I have now that when I get stressed out, I get very, very HOT!!. Is that a reaction to stress causing a hot flash? Or is that adrenaline?

He explained to me it was an adrenaline “dump.” In other words, you get upset, adrenaline is flooding your bloodstream and then the blood vessels dialate everywhere in the body, you get hot. Ever heard the term”Hot under the collar?” that’s exactly what it must mean, I think:rolleyes:

I never had this problem until the Graves’ thing started and the menopause thing started both at the same time, I think. Something can shock me (like a close call when someone almost smashes your car) and I’ll get so hot, I’m sweating and soaking wet. I get told this is a normal reaction, but mine is extremely severe so it takes a long time to cool off.

He explained this as an adrenaline dump. I told him I wanted it to stop and he said I was lucky this happened. Why? I asked him what “adrenal fatique” was and he said there is no such thing.

I really do not understand this whole thing. Cortisol is higher in the morning and lower at the end of the day. Could this explain the stress level of being upset more in the am than in the pm? If so, this would make sense to me because I am always more easy going in the night time.

How do you control the adrenaline supply from gushing into the bloodstream and dialating blood vessels and making a person so hot? It’s like a baby crying. Their faces get so red, I’m sure they feel hot, but they can’t tell us because they are too young to speak. So I really am puzzled, bewildered and confused by this whole concept of adrenaline and adrenal fatique.

Personally, I do believe there is some connection from Hashimotos, or Graves’ disease.

Karen

[Harpy]

#1178972

With hormones, many of them follow circadian cycles and cortisol normally peaks between 6-8am, this is the kick start to wake up, but there are other hormones which balance your response, if there is a mistiming with some of these, then you may well notice more anxiety, and morning anxiety is quite common, just have a search around.

I noticed this statement and haven’t posted the link and can’t vouch for it’s validity and haven’t specifically looked at the claims made about high cortisol, just something to consider when you start looking a bit deeper into these questions.
Hormone supplimentation can be a bit haphazard, although initial benefits may be seen, often these fade with time and result in a worse situation, so a bit of dedication is required to get down to the core issues.

Quote:

When cortisol is high the brain also is less sensitive to estrogens. That’s why you can have a postmenopausal woman with reasonable amounts of estrogen, but when you put her under a stressor and her cortisol rises, she’ll get hot flashes, which are a symptom of estrogen deficiency. She really doesn’t have an estrogen deficiency, the brain sensors have just been altered. If you then drive the estrogen levels up with supplementation to treat the hot flashes, she’ll start getting symptoms of estrogen dominance like weight gain in the hips, water retention, and moodiness. And the hot flashes usually don’t go away.

This is why you often can’t effectively treat someone with hormonal imbalance symptoms such as hot flashes by simply adding what seems to be the missing hormone, be it thyroid, progesterone, estrogen or testosterone. If your cortisol is chronically high you’ll have overall resistance to your hormones.

[vanillasky]

#1178973

Wow.thanks Harpy. it is a bit complicated but I think I understand it.

I wake up 90 percent of the time with a hot flash. Sometimes it’s within a second, other times it takes a few minutes. I was told that adrenaline wakes up the body and that’s what causes the hot flash. Don’t know if this is true or not

the gynecologist I went to yesterday told me my hormones are definitely out of balance and that’s why estrogen supplementation does not work. But no one cares to figure out what to do to balance them. They are afraid of the cancer risk so they let me suffer. Especially now since I have postmenopausal bleeding and need surgery, they don’t want me on any hormones at all.

I am at witt’s end and dont’ know what to do. they have me on Chasteberry Vitex. But I have only taken it barely one week when they tell me it takes 3 months to kick in if it’s going to work.

I feel like it’s all tied in together and each doctor will give a different explanation. I also have nightmares and wake up shaking sometimes. then I find myself very hot as well. Sometimes I wake up with tremors. As the day goes on, I find myself relaxed more and more but the best time is at night when I actually feel “normal” as that can be. stressors don’t seem to exist at night but the mornings are Hell on wheels.

[Raspberry]

#1178974

Thank you all for your replies and links, interesting stuff! I’m having a Graves-brain day so I can’t craft much of a response, but I am convinced to bring this issue up again if I can find a doc open to it.

Karen, the issue I wrote you about the Vitex – for me I noticed a difference in three days, days not months. It can act fast though of course is not guaranteed the same for everyone.

[Harpy]

#1178975

Raspberry wrote:

Thank you all for your replies and links, interesting stuff! I’m having a Graves-brain day so I can’t craft much of a response, but I am convinced to bring this issue up again if I can find a doc open to it.

Sorry you’re having a bad day,
I don’t know if Adrenal Fatigue is legitimate or not, but there certainly seems to be a lot of individuals out there dissatisfied with their health situation to be zeroing in on it as a possibility.

When we got into our process and realised the complexity of what was being discussed and all the contradictory information, we went back to basics.
I got into the habit of looking at the negative impacts and potential side effects first and if these were reasonable, then I looked at potential benefits, if I thought it may be worth a try, then ran it past our naturopath, if that checked out then discussed with my partner and she made the final decision.

Some people don’t want to make sacrifices unless they can get some guarantee, we didn’t look at it that way, we simply looked at anything that could be having a negative impact and ways that it could be reduced, this included diet, household chemicals, personal care products, environmental toxins, lifestyle, behaviour, circadian rhythms anything we could think of, if there was a good chance it could be an issue we looked at ways to minimise it’s impact. The way we looked at it was these things may be contributing minor irritations, static so to speak, by removing these then any true symptoms would be much clearer and easier to manage.

But the big proviso is to keep it realistic, sure we rationalised things, but only to the point before it became stressfull to exist, so making a lot of small, but positive and permanent changes.

IMO stress and diet play a big role in aggravating symptoms of GD

[Harpy]

#1178976

vanillasky wrote:

I wake up 90 percent of the time with a hot flash. Sometimes it’s within a second, other times it takes a few minutes. I was told that adrenaline wakes up the body and that’s what causes the hot flash. Don’t know if this is true or not

the gynecologist I went to yesterday told me my hormones are definitely out of balance and that’s why estrogen supplementation does not work. But no one cares to figure out what to do to balance them. They are afraid of the cancer risk so they let me suffer. Especially now since I have postmenopausal bleeding and need surgery, they don’t want me on any hormones at all.

I also have nightmares and wake up shaking sometimes. then I find myself very hot as well. Sometimes I wake up with tremors. As the day goes on, I find myself relaxed more and more but the best time is at night when I actually feel “normal” as that can be. stressors don’t seem to exist at night but the mornings are Hell on wheels.

You really are having a rough trot there,
From what I’ve read, your hormones are probably out of balance, particularly with regard to timing, and your recent elevated stress levels would push the cortisol to a higher baseline as well.

So if you can manage the stress a bit better, and I know that’s not easy with GD front & center, so like others have suggested in your thread, try distractions, or do more of those things you like doing, do the best you can.

With regard to the hormone timing, there are two main factors which govern this, ignoring menstral cycle and hormones for this case
The first is the 24 hour cycle which is reset with our sleep and wake times.
The other is the light dark cycle of day and night.
Some are influenced more by the 24hr clock, others more by the light dark cycles.
We perform best when these two timings coincide, i.e. when we wake with daybreak and go to sleep in the evening.
Shift workers have these two cycles out of phase and also have higher rates of certain diseases.
There are also other issues which disturb these cycles, like household lighting and late night TV, bright blue light, like that from TV screens, just go out in the evening and see all the blue flashes coming from the different houses. This confuses the body’s light/dark cycle evening lighting should be in the softer amber tones, like that from candle light or incandescent globes. The other issue with late night TV is the excitement, suspense & drama, these things all serve to ramp up cortisol as we live vicariously through the big screen, evenings should be a quiet time to wind down, read a book have a conversation with family etc.
Maintaining a regular routine, particularly in the evening before bed, alerts the body and allows it to prepare for sleep, some daily exercise also burns of a bit of cortisol as well, keeping the bedroom quiet, peaceful and dark for sleep also helps to reinforce the light/dark phases.
I wouldn’t expect instant changes, but within a week of just having more quiet evenings and a routine, should improve sleep and this will have a flow on effect to your ability to cope daily, the hormones may improve, but it would take a bit longer for them to reset.
Do hope you can find some peace soon.

[Stymie]

#1178977

Hi!

I seemed to have found a good endo, since she felt that if your cortisol is off that your thyroid meds wouldn’t be able to be absorbed and in essence be intolerable.

She tested my cortisol and it turned out to be normal. There is alot of information about adrenal insufficiency if you look up dessicated natural thyroid. Also stop the madness.

Since I was having such a hard time with the Levo I was doing a lot of research on the dessicated thyroid hormone, to see if it would be an alternative …
It turns out I’m doing quite well on Tirosint, the levo had lactose in it as a filler, and I’m lactose intolerant….

Diane

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