RE: Cortisol - side effects?

January 24, 2008

I doubt it is from getting too much. 5 mg is too low for adrenal fatigue. If

you can post your labs sometime this week we can get a better idea about

dosage for you depending on your stage of fatigue.

Cheri

-----Original Message-----

Hi all,I feel so helpless and sad. I have taken medical leave 2 months ago

because I am unable to work, or pretty much do anything, including

leaving the house for extended periods of time b/c of exhaustion,

lightheadedness, brain fog, depression, etc.

Thanks for your help.

.

January 27, 2008

Well, from my personal experience I did get insomnia when I first started

cortisol replacement for several weeks (nearly 2 months) until I reached a

good dose. I also had a number of other symptoms, many of them new. The

raciness and heart feeling are from adrenaline from too low cortisol. So

yes, it CAN all be from too low until you reach your right dose.

The low dose cortisol may be interfering with the ACTH and disrupting the

messages sent from the pituitary to the adrenals. What you need to do is get

your dosage up high enough to give your adrenals a rest. On a low dose the

body is just in a state of confusion...new cortisol is introduced but not

enough to help the body so the body is confused.

Ambien is something I would eliminate as it interferes with the hypothalamus

and in many of us makes us more hyper and not sleepy. You may have read that

Heath Ledger the actor died? He had a history of using a lot of Ambien and

he stated he would go nights with only 1-2 hours of sleep and it wasn't

helping, but making him wired. Based on the interviews I have been seeing I

think he was suffering from fatigue too.

People also have reported problems with melatonin, especially in doses over

1 mg.

I thought it was interesting you think cortisol which is a part of the human

make-up interferes with some bodies but don't say that about Ambien which is

completely foreign to us, lol. Cortisol is necessary for life. People would

die without it (aka, 's disease was a death sentence before they

figured it people needed cortisol replacement).

Are you graphing your temps? Are they steady day-to-day? I think your better

bet is getting off the Ambien and Melatonin and switching to better, milder

sleep aids until you get your cortisol levels up. Your sleep will improve

more when the cortisol replacement is high enough. Mine certainly has. A lot

of people here have sleep issues as it is part of the disease. There is no

quick fix an it is a long process getting the body re-regulated. We measure

our success in incremental improvements after we have reached our optimal

cortisol dose.

Cheri

-----Original Message-----

You're saying that taking too LOW a dose of cortisol would give me

insomnia? This just doesn't feel right, because the other thing

besides insomnia i got from just 3 days of cortisol (5 mg only/daily)

was anxiety, a slight raciness in my heart feeling, etc. Now that I've

been off cortisol for three days, my insomnia is persistent and still

AWFUL. I took 2 melatonin and an Ambien last night and could only

sleep 4 hours and I'm an emotional and physical mess.

I'm INCREDIBLY sensitive to all meds and wonder if cortisol just

doesn't agree with some body types, and if I'd be better to take

licorice or Isocort.

Any thoughts?

.

January 27, 2008

Yep, too low of a dose will actually make you feel worse. This is my

understanding of what happens. Your body is starved for cortisol and your

adrenal glands keep trying to make it but can't because they are exhausted,

so they produce adrenaline instead and you run off of that. Not good. When

you take a dose of cortisol, your body says YES! That's what I want! When it

runs out it starts asking your adrneal glands for more, which they can't

produce. So they put out more adrenaline. This is what causes the anxiety,

heart racing and so on. For me it was dizziness and naseua. The insomnia at

night can come from either your adrenal glands FINALLY producing some

cortisol late at night (playing catch up) or from low cortisol reactions and

too much adrenaline. A simple way to test if this is the problem is when you

start having low cortisol symptoms, take another dose of HC. The symptoms

should go away within an hour or so. Val has a protocol for this but I can't

remember it off hand. The reason you have to go up slowly on HC especially

when you have thyroid issues is that your body will dump all the thyroid

hormone sitting in your bloodstream into your cells at one time and create a

thyroid dump. This will also cause all sorts of hyper feelings until the

thyroid in your bloodstream is used up. HTH. :-)

Cherie

A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy

enough people to make it worth the effort. Herm Albright

> You're saying that taking too LOW a dose of cortisol would give me

> insomnia? This just doesn't feel right, because the other thing

> besides insomnia i got from just 3 days of cortisol (5 mg only/daily)

> was anxiety, a slight raciness in my heart feeling, etc. Now that I've

> been off cortisol for three days, my insomnia is persistent and still

> AWFUL. I took 2 melatonin and an Ambien last night and could only

> sleep 4 hours and I'm an emotional and physical mess.

>

> I'm INCREDIBLY sensitive to all meds and wonder if cortisol just

> doesn't agree with some body types, and if I'd be better to take

> licorice or Isocort.

>

> Any thoughts?

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7:44 PM

January 27, 2008

I wouldn't be a bit surprised if it was related to the cortisol. Your body

is probalby wondering where it went. :-) This one reason why it is strongly

recommended to do testing before starting HC. It is extreemely hard to do

without once you start it. Before I got my testing done and started on HC I

started taking Celexa (antidepressant) because I just couldn't handle stuff

anymore. i also have a script for Xanax, but I rarely need it now. I'll

start weaning off the Celexa once I get my HC where it needs to be and start

on thyroid stuff. I'm quite certain the depression and crying and so on was

caused by low cortisol and thyroid. The only sleep aid I've used in the past

is called Calm Forte, but I'm not sure if it is a good or bad one as far as

adrenal/thyroid stuff goes.

Cherie

A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy

enough people to make it worth the effort. Herm Albright

> Wow, thank you so much for this helpful information! Why is it that

> these groups are so much more knowledgeable than my doctors? Always?!

>

> Also, I went off the cortisol and have been off for 3 days now (I was

> on 5 mg, 1x day time released for 3 days and then stopped b/c of the

> insomnia/heart-racing). I have been totally insomniac still and my

> body feels like it has completely shut down - I am EXTRA exhausted and

> it hurts even to move my leg to get out of bed. I cannot leave the

> house and am totally depressed, crying hysterically all day,

> overreacting to all sorts of stress, and freaking out emotionally. Is

> this normal withdrawal of the cortisol? I am scheduled to start 2 mg

> once/day non-time-released next week. But now that you tell me it may

> be the 5 mg may be too LOW, i may talk to my doctor about this and

> maybe try a higher dose?

>

> Please let me know if it's normal when coming off the cortisol to feel

> like this. I literally feel like I'm going crazy, even though I've

> only been off 3 days and was only on 3 days.

>

> Why didn't my doctor tell me this about the insomnia and low dose?

> Very frustrating.

>

> Thank you so much, and could you recommend safer sleep aids instead of

> Ambien and Melatonin?

>

> I took Xanax (I know, bad also) to sleep last night bc I was desperate.

>

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7:44 PM

January 27, 2008