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Post Edited (1000Daisies) : 5/14/2021 8:57:21 PM (GMT-6)

Honestly, almost any one of those things could be causing a headache.

You ruled out Eleuthero, as you have taken it before without it causing headaches - and you should know that eleuthero is for raising the immune function, not necessarily for reducing fatigue.

But that still leaves a number of things that can cause a headache. Is there a different adrenal supplement that you can try that maybe doesn't have so many different things in it? At least that way you can see if it's supplementing the adrenals that are doing that, or one of those ingredients.

I do my best to stick to single herbs/supplements that have fewer ingredients - or ones that I know I do okay with - so that I know what I'm reacting to. It really simplifies it for me.

I could not tolerate Eleutherococcus at all. I reacted very poorly to it as in 1 drop. So I hung in there and tried it and finally I said, "nope, this one is not for me."

I thought I might come back to it eventually, but I never did. I got well without it.

Sida Acuta was another herb that I could not take.

This is why we only do a drop and slowly go up.

I NEVER pushed through anything. If I got a bad feeling, I let that one go and moved on to the next. Toughing it out was not for me at all. For my body, toughing it out was doing damage and not helping me.

But, we all are different and some on here support toughing it out.

Daisies -

The combo supplements can get a little hairy for people like us. Too many ingredients, too confusing. And most of them are unnecessary, to be truthful.

I don't know if you have any methylation or detoxing issues, but that is usually the reason people respond w/ headaches or other sx with supplements.

Since you didn't have sx on the first day but did on the following day, this screams to me that whatever your body has trouble metabolizing built up and it took awhile to get rid of it.

I know that some people have issues with B6 and methyl forms of B12 (even though most MDs think that methyl form is the better form of B12, people like me can still struggle to metabolize it). Niacin dilates the blood vessels. And, frankly, your headache could be caused by something else in the supplement.

For adrenal recovery, the absolute BEST thing you can do is to be very calm, lie low, relax, do less, sleep sleep sleep. For many months. Supplements only really work if you are only a little depleted and know exactly what to supplement for your dozen or so neurotransmitter levels, cortisol levels, etc. Some people get lucky or can figure this out. Some people have no or few methylation issues and can take a general adrenal support successfully. For the rest of us it isn't easy.

The 24-hr saliva testing was appx $300-400 last time I did it and provides info on all dozen Neurotransmitter & cortisol levels. Even then, it is very difficult to figure out how to supplement for each one because they all act interdependently—tried this for two years and spent thousands on supplements, only to swing levels from one extreme to the other. This was before i knew I had Lyme and methylation problems. I still don't know what influenced what… eventually I stopped treating specifically for the adrenals, focused on Lyme and only when I was able to accomplish almost an entire year of doing NOTHING… did my adrenals recover.

I do like one component of the 24-hr testing, which includes saliva samples at 4-5 different times a day. The report shows cortisol levels for each saliva sample, and you can get some good info from this. For instance, your levels when you wake up should be in a high range, hit peak levels around noon, and then gradually fall throughout the day, lowest level at bedtime.
- If your levels are too low all day long, that tells you a little bit about how to supplement cortisol, let's say.
- If your levels are too high all day, this tells your engine is revved too high (generally due to psychological stress) and your response would be different.

So, if you do decide to test at least you have a little more info to go on. I think the test can also help you understand what stage of adrenal fatigue/exhaustion you're in, although sx can do the same for some people. Don't forget your thyroid levels, too. Most MDs are clueless how to test and treat for them as well but lots of good info out there online.

This is one of the few areas of medicine that—if the right person can crack it—would be a billion-dollar windfall. They think they have it figured out—but they don't.

That said, people here have had success with supplementation - again, it's finding what works for you. Hope more people chime in.

-p

Yes! Sorry I was unclear. I meant the comprehensive cortisol + neurotransmitter levels, which is a much better picture than just cortisol. Hopefully, a good MD can figure out adrenal fatigue issue w/out any testing. Adrenal exhaustion is a whole other thing and probably needs more investigation.

But then again, all that testing didn't do me a whole lotta good since we couldn't ever figure out how to supplement effectively. I think others here have had more success - hope they chime in.

-p

I've used www.zrtlab.com/

Daisies - so sorry you are dealing with this. I cab't imagine how confusing it must be getting the right support for you and the kids.
I have allergy issues and have been working on my adrenals.
I usually don't react to vitamins although there are exceptions D3 is an issue for me.
From my experience it is the herbs that are the greatest issue.
I took Dr Wilsons Future Formulations - I think they are now called Original Formulations in America. He offers two different Adrenal support herbal formulations................ One with Licrorice root and one without. Licrorice root is very very stimulating and can cause all kinds of issues, including headaches. My best guess is it is that one.
You could try taking the herb separately to test yourself that is what I would do(if I had it already) but I dont have 3 kids.
So I can understand why you might not want to try this. I buy vitamins separately from herbs and I buy herbal tinctures or powder and take each one separately to see what I can take. This works for me. I hope you get on top of this soon
I wish you all the best.

Daisies -

I know the suggestion to slow down, etc… sounds ridiculous, impossible, even naive. I debated long an hard about whether or not to include that in my posts… but I finally decided that it was important to at least share.

Like you, I had really good reasons to dismiss the idea as unrealistic. I don't have children but I also have to support myself and work in a very stressful field w/ few options to go elsewhere and no possibility for working part-time. And not everyone was as bad as I was so "stepping out of life" isn't always required. But for me it was. And I cycled through all the other remedies and focused on all the other reasons for those adrenal-related issues. And several people told me that the solution would simply require me to slow down and each time I didn't really hear it, which cost me a LOT more than if I had just given into the treatment and the wisdom early on.

The other reality that I think those of us dealing w/ adrenal and neuroT issues face is that due to these imbalances, our brains won't slow down and I feel very strongly that it adds to the physiological issues with slowing down. That adrenaline that gets us through the stress is exactly what keeps us from being able to be peaceful, relax, slower… Kind of hard to explain.

So, I feel compelled to share all that. We each have our own journey.

But it is a requirement to slow down to heal adrenals. Maybe others can share good 'mom' ideas. The thing with women and moms is that we generally don't ask for help because we're always the helpers. In this case, we gotta get more creative and figure out better ways for others to help us… and this isn't easy because sometimes that only means more work for us ;) But we gotta figure it out.

-p