Adrenal Fatigue
You're utterly exhausted, but your test results are "normal.”
No matter how much sleep you get, you’re always tired. You drag yourself out of bed every morning and force yourself through your daily tasks. Your back aches, and you’re desperate for salty foods, caffeine, or sweets, especially in the afternoon. Irritable, anxious, and jumping at the slightest noise… What is going on and how do you make it stop?
Most of all, you’re completely discouraged because doctors ran bloodwork and pronounced you healthy. When you’ve reached the point that you know something is wrong, but no one seems to believe you or know how to help, it’s time to see a holistic health expert.
You could be suffering from adrenal fatigue. Knowing that you can do something about your symptoms can be life-changing.
It’s not all in your head, and we can help.
What is adrenal fatigue?
Adrenal fatigue (sometimes called adrenal exhaustion) is a syndrome that occurs when the adrenal glands – small organs located above your kidneys – are overstimulated until they no longer work at the proper level. Typically, the condition comes after periods of chronic or intense stress, chronic lack of sleep, microbiome imbalance, or follows an infection like the flu, pneumonia, or bronchitis.
The adrenal glands release the stress hormones cortisol and adrenaline as part of a natural “fight or flight” response, increasing your heart rate and blood pressure in the process. Eventually, high stress levels can cause your adrenal glands to burn out from overproduction of stress hormones. As a result, adrenal fatigue sets in.
Sufferers of adrenal fatigue may not show any obvious physical signs of being unwell, and mainstream medicine is often quick to dismiss the symptoms without understanding the causes. So you soldier on, wiped out and wondering how you ever used to get it all done. If there is one lesson adrenal fatigue teaches, it is to trust yourself when something feels wrong.
Causes of Adrenal Fatigue
Your body’s immune system will respond when you’ve been under severe stress, and not always in a good way. Divorce, a serious illness, losing your job, the death of a loved one – these are all traumatic experiences that can overtax the body. Of course, it’s not always bad news that causes stress. Newlyweds and new parents often struggle, as do college students and folks who just received a big promotion at work.
At first, it’s easy to blame the fatigue and mood swings on the challenges you’re facing. So what if you need a bag of potato chips or another venti latte to survive the afternoon? But eventually, there’s no denying that something is wrong.
The body is made of interconnected systems, and they must all be well maintained to keep yourself feeling healthy. Your adrenal glands are responsible for balancing multiple hormones, and when these are out of whack it can affect mental health, libido, the ability to conceive, and contribute to problems like diabetes and digestive disorders.
Adrenal Fatigue in Disguise
The symptoms of adrenal fatigue can mimic other conditions. Your doctor may suspect other issues, like hypothyroidism, fibromyalgia, sleep apnea, or clinical depression – the lack of energy, exhaustion, weight changes, and achiness from adrenal fatigue can all be symptoms of these illnesses. If there is no concrete evidence for any of these diagnoses, however, you are often left with the reality that you feel tired for no good reason. You don’t have to settle for that future.
Advanced Lab Testing
Start with comprehensive functional adrenal hormone testing and the expertise to help you understand why your adrenal glands are struggling and what to do about it.
Custom Wellness Plan
Reduce the stress contributing to adrenal fatigue by following a custom holistic self-care plan designed specifically for you.
Support with Supplements
Supplements help fill problematic nutrient gaps and unravel any hidden internal stressors that are interfering with your attempts to get better.
There’s more to stress than you might think.
When we say the word “stress,” we generally mean the speed bumps in our daily routine: job deadlines, traffic jams, the realities of parenting, relationship challenges, or unpaid bills. Those are all sources of mental stress. But there are two more types of stress: biochemical and structural.
Structural stress is when a body part isn’t aligned quite as it should be. This could be genetic, developmental, or from an illness or injury. Examples include things like spinal misalignment after a car accident or internal organs that are stuck to one another due to endometriosis.
Biochemical stress is a bit more complicated, and its sources are practically everywhere:
Processed foods or foods to which you have a sensitivity or allergy
Beauty and hygiene products containing chemicals
Household toxins in cleaning products, detergents, or plastics
Environmental or noise pollution
Mold exposure or chronic infections
A build-up of toxic heavy metals
Too much or too little exercise
Poor quality or quantity of sleep
Blood sugar imbalances
Vitamin and mineral deficiencies
Smoking
Medications
Persistent pain
All 3 types of stress – mental, structural, and biochemical – cause your adrenal glands to produce the adrenaline and cortisol. It’s an adaptive mechanism as a response to perceived danger. Stress hormones are there to give you that superhuman strength and endurance you need to save yourself if you’re ever in a life-threatening situation.
Stress is meant to be short term.
Unfortunately, modern life often results in ongoing stress for extended periods of time, sometimes even decades.
Your adrenal glands can provide support for a long time despite the daily onslaught of stressors, but the production of cortisol demands a lot of nutrient resources. Your body accommodates this by diverting resources away from the areas of the body that are less critical in moments of danger, such as your immune system, digestive system, and reproductive organs. But if there are too many sources of stress, or the stress goes on too long, the body begins to run out of resources altogether… and you end up with adrenal fatigue.
When you strategically remove stress and give the body exactly what it needs, it can replenish and restore the function that was lost when resources were too low. It can physically heal parts that have been damaged. Supporting the adrenal glands is sometimes key to restoring wellness in numerous other areas of the body.
Conquer adrenal fatigue with holistic health support. Contact us today to schedule your free Consultation & Evaluation, undergo testing, and partner with the experts at Ann Arbor Holistic Health.
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