Hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis, any suggested reading?

Anyone out there know any really good reading on the subject?

Alternative medicine doctors, New Age, doctors, whatever you wanna call them, use the term, HPA access, however, conventional endocrinologist will never use this term. Conventional Endo’s look at each part of the Endo system individually, which is kind of a problem.

So I have mentioned in the past that I have overly sensitive adrenal glands in that when I have a stressful situation I am only mentally impacted by it for a short time yet physically, I can feel cortisol surging through my veins for days after. This will not make sense to anyone, unless they’ve actually experience it themselves.

To top it off I also have an adrenal tumor, but if that was leaking, I would feel this way all the time. It gets checked occasionally and so far it is not on cruise control, but I cannot have that checked when I’m having a stressful situation because then it will look like it is on “cruise control”.

So when my adrenals are over activated, it makes my thyroid numbers wacko also. In the past when this happens the end or just looks at each of the numbers individually and shakes his head doesn’t know what to do.

Then he also looks at my fasting glucose numbers, glances at the “very fit me” and says well you should try to lose some weight and work out. “Oh wait a minute you do that already hmmm.”….Then he silent because he doesn’t know what to do.

So, on my adrenals dump, cortisol in my veins, it signals deliver to dump more sugar in my blood as well. When this happens because it isn’t you from usual diabetic issues it’s from too much cortisol. And I really don’t know what to do about it.

Other than the fact that there are places on the Internet, that says yes, this can happen, there is no forum for it or good advice /directions on what to do ,so I’m kind of lost.

Just so you understand what I’m saying mentally, my brain is in a pretty calm place right now, but inside me, I cannot seem to turn the cortisol off and it will probably be this way for several more days based on experience. In that time I will not be able to sleep very well, and in fact at night, my legs will feel tingly.

There’s probably not too many people that have actually felt this . if you have and have any advice, I would appreciate it .

even if you’ve not felt this, but have stumbled across it or seem to know something about it, i would still appreciate hearing what you have to say, or pointing me in another direction.

I’m kind of tired of stressful situations, That really shouldn’t be stressful. These events are just bad surprises in every day life they are not about relationships.

Thanks

Try the relax track on https://www.brain.fm. It lowers cortisol.
It kinda sounds similar to my problem, check the low T3 topic. I don't know how to link to a specific post. What are your adrenal blood test results?
Could it also be an issue with the vagus nerve?

What about ashwagandha? It lowers cortisol and supports the thyroid.
I'm gonna try it.

Well but try the brain.fm trial, it really lowers cortisol.
Do you also have weird pain at the back of your head, where your head meets your neck? When you press your skull and go down, the moment it starts to feel soft, that's where it hurts whenever my thyroid is having trouble keeping up with cortisol.

I will try to dig up some studies tomorrow. They are scattered on my hard drive.

astroman said...

So I have mentioned in the past that I have overly sensitive adrenal glands in that when I have a stressful situation I am only mentally impacted by it for a short time yet physically, I can feel cortisol surging through my veins for days after. This will not make sense to anyone, unless they’ve actually experience it themselves.

i have exactly this

i can remember having it from before Lyme - or at least well before i knew i had lyme / before i was ill

anything that fired my fight or flight response - like a drunk guy starting a fight in a pub when i was younger could cause me to be wired and unable to sleep for days afterwards.

it would have to be pretty extreme though - like some kind of immanent physical violence - type thing - (i hate violence so fortunately it was a pretty rare thing). But i thought that was pretty normal?

oddly it was often better if things actually came to a head and were then over and done - perhaps more of a natural cycle - not sure why?

later i did a pretty stressful job - trouble shooting - there were pressures and often people were upset, things could get heated - but that seemed OK - seemed normal - would not lose sleep over it.

but once i was ill with Lyme - brain inflammation - irritability - and reactivity ramped up to increased levels - any slight altercation could drive my adrenaline for days.

BTW my BP is v reactive also - (i would be surprised if yours is not - i mean when not using beta blocker type things - as raised BP is a normal part of the cortisol response) - mine will go from 110/75 at rest to 150/95 for a simple doctors office visit ( just a standard GP visit - you know its going to be frustrating but not life changing or high stakes)

i have not checked if my glucose actually spikes - but i would think so as this is part of the physiologic stress response to cortisol - so its kind of supposed to

i think its actually part of the mechanism by which chronic stress contributes to type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome. i used to work with a guy that had a super high constant cortisol level all of the time - and after 10 years he developed metabolic syndrome

but his was high all the time - pretty much never coming down - whereas mine is normally OK -probably even low much of the time - judging by how slow and rough my mornings typically are and just gets exaggerated spikes once in a while

i wanted to add that i think the mental aspect has a great deal to do with whether it goes up and stays up - or comes down pretty quickly again.

to try and give an example- a bit like the one above where things ramped up but then came to a head - that was usually way easier to deal with afterwards - than something that flared up and then ended in a v unsatisfactory manner.
why should that be? - what was the difference?

in one it was more "done and dusted" - in the other i was likely to mither over what i should have done differently, could have done, wish i had done etc -

and in that situation one is running over the stressful event in ones mind over and over - the brain doesn't really care about the difference / whether its just re-living it in your imagination - re-living it still spikes the stress hormones output - or at least maintains it.
the quote "its not the snake that bites you that does the damage - its chasing that snake that drives the poison home"

i am by nature generally, v calm, logical - but I noticed that getting out of the re-living it cycle is much much harder with an inflamed lyme brain as in the first few years of my illness - the slightest argument could knock of course for days sometimes

i still get it from time to time-
eg when herxing and brain is inflamed again
for example- I was herxing from treatment the other day and on my daily walk and someone's out of control dog ran at me from 30 yards away and went for my face - i pretty much lost it with the owner - and kind of surprised myself too - adrenaline was through the roof! )

but generally its much better now

BlazerGermany said...
Being in this Forum is really like walking through a whole deja vu.

..... guess lyme doesn't know age at all

Crazy that the expierences are so similar.

Good that your treating lyme while young. I had it decades.

I no longer have the huge lyme symptoms, but I believe it triggered my bad genes into what I have now. I have double copy genes for all of my current medical issues, parents had them. Lyme flipped the switch. It can have long lasting body changes the longer lyme is in you.