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Adrenals - Jittery/adrenaline before bowel movement

Messages
1
I have been suffering from adrenal fatigue for 10 months now. I was wondering if anyone gets really jittery/anxious or feels adrenaline or heart palpitations before having a bowel movement? I generally feel 70% better after. I was wondering why that is - is it a sluggish liver or blood pressure or low blood sugar?
 

barbc56

Senior Member
Messages
3,657
Though I don't know if this is what's happening in your case, anxiety can cause the urgancy to have a bowel movement.

When you bear down while having a bowel movement your vagus nerve is stimulated causing your heartrate to decrease. This is called the Valsalva effect.

This may reduce anxiety. People have used this for anxiety but paradoxically, it can make a person more anxious if it causes light headedness.

Valsalva maneuver is a technique where you bear down as if having a bowel movement while holding your breath. Sometimes it's used for tachycardia. A long time ago I ended up in the emergency room for tachycardia and they had me do this. In my case, it didn’t' work.

This is also why people have been known to faint or even worse have a heart attack or die while on the toilet. Usually the person has an underlying health condition.

Sometimes just having a bowel movement can make you feel better physically without the above explanation

I am not a medical professional. I would recommend talking to your doctor if you find this is a problem.

Good luck.

Barb
 

WoolPippi

Senior Member
Messages
556
Location
Netherlands
The building announcement of the body that it's time to have a bowel movement is a stressing factor that requires cortisol.
Having the movement itself requires quite a lot of it.
Afterwards, when things have to shift back into place and new homeostasis has to be established, cortisol is required too.
So my theoretical answer to your question is: it's the increased demand on your adrenals (and their insufficiency to provide) that causes the jittery.

Here now follows my anecdotal experience. Context: I have adrenal malfunction and take up to 20 mcg Hydrocortison per day. My BP is still too low and I haven't got intestine motility without hydrocortison and lying flat ("supine"?).

I do not get jittery before a bowel movement.
I do need to take extra hydrocortison beforehand because during and afterwards I'll come down hard, adrenal wise. I may even crash. Often I need to lie down for an hour, in a darkened room, waiting for my body to sort things out.
I do feel enormous better when there's nothing in my bowels, however. Having stuff there is really tiresome to the system. If I didn't like eating and level blood sugar I'd opt for a fruitarian lifestyle or somesuch and live on fruit water and never have a bowel movement again.
Hope this perspective is helpful.