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Poor Adrenal/Neurotransmitter Output

gregh286

Senior Member
Messages
976
Location
Londonderry, Northern Ireland.
I thought I would share some thoughts. Adrenal fatigue is a term often used that may or may not be related to CFS/ME.
I recently had a neuro adrenal panel done with bluehorizon that shows awfully low neurotransmitters across the board.

Attached the results.
Since the results I implemented protocols to support these low figures with incredible success, taking me from around a 40 on bells scale to 80 within 5 weeks.
for comparison, I just completed another test, i would be surprised if they did not improve significantly from the 25/01/16 test. Will post them next week after them come back.

From adrenal/HPA perspective, I noticed so many triggers in past 4 years, like i am sure many on this forum do:
i. Stress events/cortisol spikes will create a mini or full crash episode.
ii. Nightmares also create a mini crash, obviously creating a flight or fight state in sleep, pressuring adrenals for extra epinephrine and making next morning tougher....
iii. Morning worse, possibly caused by pre wake cortisol spike....adrenal pressure.
iv. Missing sleep or wakening pre 5am can actually create a good day next day, as cortisol spike avoided.
v. Adrenaline surge, etc, another crash instigator...

And yes, I am aware that urine neurotransmitter tests not accurate, blah, blah, but they paint a PICTURE of some description,,,and grossly out of range on all of them is no fluke. Walks like a duck.....

Adrenal fatigue is a bit misleading term in my opinion, more like adrenal deregulation, or poor adrenal capacity,,,either way the levels of neuros are not what they are supposed to be, call it as you will. It does explain somewhat the vastly widely ranging number of symptoms, lack of serum biomarkers and prehaps why women tend to outnumber men in CFS.

To add to the whole picture, in amino test, I was grossly low in tyrosine, gluatmine, and serine.
No prizes for guessing what they do......precursors for neuros.

More to follow soon.............:)
 

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ukxmrv

Senior Member
Messages
4,413
Location
London
Greg, I'm not a fan of the term "adrenal fatigue" but I still like to see what is going on under that umbrella. Thanks for posting your results.

I'm intrigued what you say about the cortisol spike or pre-5am wakening causing a better day. I am also better with little sleep over night.

Do you have a file with your cortisol results as well split over the day as well? Apologies if I have missed that somewhere.
 

gregh286

Senior Member
Messages
976
Location
Londonderry, Northern Ireland.
hi,
yea i have 3 cortisol tests done.
first one you see cortisol too high back in mid 2014, straining adrenals maybe for years.
now they are low/normal,,,
but i take amitripline now at night.
I think it keeping the first AM reading lower.
 

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gregh286

Senior Member
Messages
976
Location
Londonderry, Northern Ireland.
Sure will.
Tbh i feel half cured already. Although im not naive to think cfs is so easy overcome in long term.

Its early days and i have long long way to go and i still have stamina issues if i try to do intense exercise but all else is normal...lobido...wit....enjoying music.....laughter....feet temperature has risen....eagerness...speed of thought.

I think the stamina and fatigue issue in me.arising from very low epinephine and norepinephine.....adrenals not able to keep pace when pushed.
I often felt a weak heartbeat or weak heart output at times in crash....low epinephine supply i believe. Sorta like a car battery that cant hold a charge.

This should be fixed if i get them back in normal range.

We shall see!!
I hope i prove myself right.........
 

Chriswolf

Senior Member
Messages
130
Damn I would love to get tests as detailed as the ones you're getting, no such luck where I live, I don't even know if a private doctor would be willing to do them without the government regulatory pitchforks coming out.

I'm fairly certain I'm in a similar boat neurotransmitter-wise, only I'm fairly convinced at this point that it is catecholamines that are my biggest worry ATM.

Lately I've been waking up feeling very anxious, only not particularly because of nightmares, although those seem to happen more vividly as of late, but because my blood pressure is horrendously low and it feels like I was one bad turn away from dying in my sleep, that's how bad it felt anyhow. It is a scary way to wake up nevertheless.

I've actually tried tyrosine and it worked really well for my crummy body temperature issues as well as fatigue based cognitive impairments, however it didn't give me that energy "boost" that I was hoping for. I'm going to try phenylalanine as others have noted they've tried both and got more out of the latter.

Eventually I'm going to have to get some serious tests done, but you wouldn't believe how terrible our healthcare system is getting where I live, they've gone into full-triage mode, I know of other people who have had doctors blatantly lie to their faces about their condition simply because they didn't want to shoulder the burden of taking on their problems.
 

gregh286

Senior Member
Messages
976
Location
Londonderry, Northern Ireland.
hi,
I am paying for these privately, no doctor required.
order them, get them in post, send them back. results are emailed.
Doesnt matter if you live in london, lahore or lima as long as you get the kit back to them on them. most samples can be frozen.

http://bluehorizonmedicals.co.uk

Healthcare dont give 2 flying f@@ks about CFs, you need to take it into your own hands.
 

Chriswolf

Senior Member
Messages
130
hi,
I am paying for these privately, no doctor required.
order them, get them in post, send them back. results are emailed.
Doesnt matter if you live in london, lahore or lima as long as you get the kit back to them on them. most samples can be frozen.

http://bluehorizonmedicals.co.uk

Healthcare dont give 2 flying f@@ks about CFs, you need to take it into your own hands.

That's interesting, my only concern is how blood samples are taken.

"Alternatively, many of our tests can be conducted using a finger prick method at home"

Ahh, interesting, I didn't think that would be enough for a sample.