naturopathy for adrenal + thyroid health

Latest Adrenal + Thyroid Articles

Dr. James L Wilson, author of Adrenal Fatigue: The 21st Century Stress Syndrome compiled a questionnaire to help you evaluate the likelihood of your having burnout.

Ironically, your adrenal glands are there to help you cope with stress.  Under stress they release adrenalin as part of your “fight or flight” response, which gives you extra energy to run from a tiger or lift the bus off your child.  The problem arises when you are faced with constant stressors and your adrenal glands become overworked.

• Alarm – you become stressed, but manage to re-balance yourself.  Your adrenalin, cortisol, DHEA and insulin rise
• Resistance – typically cortisol is raised as you try to cope with long-term levels of stress.  You can no longer re-balance yourself.  Your hormones such as progesterone, testosterone, and DHEA become depleted in favour of producing more cortisol.  You wake feeling exhausted and need a coffee to get going in the morning.  You have regular infections and your libido plummets
• Exhaustion – This is the final stage when you exhaust your supplies of hormones and your cortisol levels crash.  On a bad day you might not be able to get out of bed.  Your brain is fuzzy, your memory poor, you lack energy to do the things you love, such as sport.  You lose your sense of humour, maybe you have back ache, your digestion suffers, you become irritable and anxious, and you possibly suffer from insomnia

Long-term stress and adrenal exhaustion lead to many chronic health problems including digestive problems, leaky gut with subsequent allergies and intolerances, thyroid problems, weight-gain, low blood pressure, insomnia, glandular fever, chronic back pain, arthritic pains, and eventually auto-immune diseases.

Your adrenals are about the size of a walnut and sit on top of your kidneys about halfway up your back.

Firstly, you need to address your lifestyle.  This is the hardest aspect to improve.  It is essential to recovery that you find a lifestyle that includes sufficient joy, as well as rest and relaxation for recovery.  Stressors can be emotional or physical. 

A health problem is just as much a stressor as an unhappy relationship or a job you hate.  Do you feel you wake to an endless “To Do List” and a life that contains little joy and fun?  It’s important not to lose sight of what makes your soul sing. 

Part of recovering from burnout is learning to listen to your body and allowing yourself to sleep as long as you need to.  Recovery may take months or years depending on how exhausted you are, how you take care of yourself, and how many stressors you still have in your life.

Balancing your blood sugar levels by avoiding refined carbohydrates, sugar and alcohol is very important.  Include plenty of fresh organic vegetables and regular amounts of protein in your diet. 

One symptom of adrenal fatigue is an aversion to eating meat because you no longer produce sufficient hydrochloric acid to digest it. Protein balances blood sugar levels and is an important part of your recovery plan.  Taking Betaine HCL with protein under supervision can help in these cases.

Sugar and chocolate addiction are often part of the picture of burnout since our body craves instant energy foods.  Chocolate contains magnesium, which becomes depleted with burnout.  These foods raise cortisol levels and prevent adrenal recovery.

• Both the Adrenal Stress Plus by Genova and the DUTCH urine test indicate if and what stage of exhaustion you are in 

• A hair mineral analysis test, which will show your overall mineral and adrenal status and offer a supplement protocol.   I recommend and use ARL – http://www.arltma.com

Secondary hypothyroidism or under-functioning of the thyroid is commonly caused by adrenal exhaustion.  Low adrenal function leads to low thyroid function.  Typically, you might have high levels of TBG (thyroid binding globulin), low free T4, low free T3, raised TSH and possibly raised rT3.

• Loss of hair at the end of your eyebrows
• Dry hair
• Dry skin
• Fatigue
• Weight-gain and difficulty losing weight
• Insomnia
• Muscle cramps
• Cold hands and feet

When your adrenals are exhausted they down-regulate the thyroid so it produces fewer hormones.  This is to preserve energy for survival. 

I recommend the Thyroid Plus test by Genova, since the NHS typically only tests for TSH, which is not enough for a full picture of your thyroid health.  You want to test for all of the following if you suspect thyroid issues:

• TSH
• Free T4
• Free T3
• rT3
• Anti-TGO and anti-TPO antibodies (for Hashimoto’s or Graves)

Sometimes it is difficult to differentiate between adrenal and thyroid symptoms as several of these overlap.  The only way of knowing for certain is to run lab tests.  With your lab results you can target and effectively support the organs that need assistance.

References + Reading

1. Dr. James L Wilson, author of Adrenal Fatigue: The 21st Century Stress Syndrome
2. http://www.arltma.com/Articles/BurnoutDoc.htm
3. http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/09/05/most-common-cause-of-fatigue-that-is-missed-or-misdiagnosed-by-doctors.aspx