Re: Worse in the morning

[Guest guest]

In frequent-dose-chelation kyrrefoerli wrote:

Hi!

Why do I 'always' feel worse in the morning ?

-----------This is a very common mercury symptom, worse in the morning, and

best at night. This is my pattern too, usually always best at

night.--------Jackie

By worse I mean more fatigued, tired and weak. I sleep ok (even dream), but I

do NOT feel rested.

---------Do some reading in AI. You may need to try some different

supplements. On page 124, Andy says, " Waking up stiff and unrefreshed wtih no

dreams indicates too little dopamine. This can be helped with GABA and taurine

(which are relaxing as well as raise dopamine levels) in addition to the more

obvious approach using tyrosine or phenylalanine. "

And I also think your hormones have alot to do with your sleep and how you

feel in general. So if you haven't tested your adrenals and thyroid and other

sex hormones, you might want to do that. Because some of this sounds adrenal

also, tired in the morning, and better in the evening. Your morning cortisol is

probably low, and adrenal support might help alot.-----------Jackie

I usually feel better in the evening. This has been the case since before I

started chelating 11 months ago.

---------I think many have found that chelation is hard on their adrenals, and

that they need adrenal support even more so, after starting chelation. So if

you haven't tested your adrenals yet, that's what I would suggest

doing.-------Jackie

- Kyrre

[Guest guest]

>

> Hi!

>

> Why do I 'always' feel worse in the morning ? By worse I meen more

> fatigued, tired and weak. I sleep ok (even dream), but I do NOT feel

> rested. I usually feel better in the evening. This has been the case

> since before I started chelating 11 months ago.

>

> - Kyrre

>

-----Hi there, this will sound a bit crazy……

I used get that...I had terrible trouble. I used to wake up feeling

so so bad. I changed my mattress even, but that didn't help.

Then one day I read about fire retardant chemicals used in bedding

and mattress's. They are called Brominated Flame Retardants(BFR). To

make a very long story short, I discovered I had multiple chemical

sensitivities and that I was reacting to these chemicals in my

bedding. By law these products are required to have these flame

retardant chemicals in them. They are super toxic! My duvet, my

pillows and my old and my new mattress all had this stuff in it. This

took a lot of investigating, time, effort & learning to figure all

this out, but eventually I figured it out, was a bit by bit thing,

duvet first, then pillow, then mattress. Once I figured it ALL out I

replaced all these things with Organic chemical free stuff…..and now

I sleep really well!

Those foam mattress's are the worst….absolutely dripping in toxic

chemicals.

If you interested more, email me directly as I believe we are going

rather severely off topic!

Sunshine

[Guest guest]

I'm a worse-in-the-morning kind of gal too. For me, it seems to be

very much an adrenal thing. I read somewhere that when people have

adrenal problems, their cortisol isn't high in the morning and lower in

the evening like it should be. Instead, they have no energy, feel

tired-and-wired when they wake up. And then after 6pm, cortisol levels

rise (when they should be falling) and they feel fine for the evening

hours, often staying up late and becoming night owls.

Anyway, I thought I'd throw that in there, especially since this week

has been a tough adrenal week for me and I'm getting these nights of

sleep that don't seem to be doing the job, no matter how long I sleep.

Drinking licorice tea in the morning helps me, as it " recycles "

cortisol and gives an energy boost when it's low.

>

> Hi!

>

> Why do I 'always' feel worse in the morning ? By worse I meen more

> fatigued, tired and weak. I sleep ok (even dream), but I do NOT feel

> rested. I usually feel better in the evening. This has been the case

> since before I started chelating 11 months ago.

>

> - Kyrre

>

[Guest guest]

I am worse in the morning, too. I used to say that basically every

morning upon awaking it felt like I'd been " hit by a truck. " Not that

I was in physical pain, but that I was so out-of-it and had all of my

chronic symptoms flared-up (brain fog, chest tightness/discomfort,

general malaise, sluggishness). This would last all morning,

sometimes all day, even after sleeping 8-10 sound hours of sleep.

This lead me to having extensive sleep studies done, which revealed no

helpful information.

I'm a bit better in the mornings now, probably since my amalgams have

been gone for 7+ months now, and I've been chelating. Still have bad

brain fog most mornings, lasting many hours. Also, many mornings I

just feel horrible in nonspecific ways -- hard to describe -- almost

nausea like.

I think this is adrenal related, and I have done saliva testing that

shows my adrenals are dysfunctional, which I ascribe to mercury

toxicity. I was expecting to see my cortisol level spike upon awaking

and then quickly fall to below normal. HOWEVER, my saliva test shows

HIGH CORTISOL in the morning and throughout the day, until the last

reading drops below normal at bedtime. But my DHEA is very low. So

this is definitely adrenal fatigue, though it seems like it's in the

early stages, thankfully. http://www.chronicfatigue.org/ASI%202.html

But I'm still a bit confused why I feel so lousy in the morning, given

my adrenals are pumping out a lot of cortisol. Maybe it's the low

DHEA. I've been supplementing DHEA at 200mg per day for several weeks

now. No dramatic noticeable effects, but perhaps it -- along with my

other supplements and chelation -- are having subtle benefits and

causing my mornings to not be quite so bad these days.

Or maybe the chronic mercury toxicity interferes with the normal

benefits of sleep, leading to extra malaise and brain fog in the

morning. I'm also extremely sensitive to getting enough sleep. If I

only get like 6 hours, I can be so tired the next day that I'm

dangerous to myself and others, and pretty much unable to hold an

intelligent conversation. But if I get too much sleep 9-10 hours, the

brain fog is often as thick as molasses.

Darren

[Guest guest]

In frequent-dose-chelation Darren wrote:

I am worse in the morning, too. I used to say that basically every

morning upon awaking it felt like I'd been " hit by a truck. " Not that

I was in physical pain, but that I was so out-of-it and had all of my

chronic symptoms flared-up (brain fog, chest tightness/discomfort,

general malaise, sluggishness). This would last all morning,

sometimes all day, even after sleeping 8-10 sound hours of sleep.

------------This definitely sounds adrenal, and I used to feel awful in the

morning before I started adrenal support, but my cortisol was low all day, and

low DHEA, by the time I had it tested. So with your high cortisol that you

mention below, I don't know if you treat it the same or not.----------Jackie

This lead me to having extensive sleep studies done, which revealed no

helpful information.

-----------I also had a sleep study done, and nothing. I think your hormones

have alot to do with how well you sleep. I think my sister showed me an article

that said low testosterone also affected people's sleep.---------Jackie

I'm a bit better in the mornings now, probably since my amalgams have

been gone for 7+ months now, and I've been chelating. Still have bad

brain fog most mornings, lasting many hours. Also, many mornings I

just feel horrible in nonspecific ways -- hard to describe -- almost

nausea like.

------------In some other thread, I think it was Dave and mentioned the

nausea and said it had something to do with the body sending out too much ACTH?

I know this is supposed to tell the adrenals to make more cortisol, but maybe in

your case it is sending it out because of the low DHEA? And then as a side

effect, your adrenals make too much cortisol? Anyone want to comment? Does

that make any sense?---------Jackie

I think this is adrenal related, and I have done saliva testing that

shows my adrenals are dysfunctional, which I ascribe to mercury

toxicity. I was expecting to see my cortisol level spike upon awaking

and then quickly fall to below normal. HOWEVER, my saliva test shows

HIGH CORTISOL in the morning and throughout the day, until the last

reading drops below normal at bedtime. But my DHEA is very low. So

this is definitely adrenal fatigue, though it seems like it's in the

early stages, thankfully. http://www.chronicfatigue.org/ASI%202.html

-------------Yes it does sound like stage 2, but I'm not sure how they treat

it when the cortisol levels are high. I wonder if ACE would help you at

all?-------Jackie

But I'm still a bit confused why I feel so lousy in the morning, given

my adrenals are pumping out a lot of cortisol. Maybe it's the low

DHEA.

-----------I'm not sure either. But too much cortisol isn't good for you

either. How are your blood sugar levels? And DHEA is the precursor to

testosterone, so you are probably low in that also. Have you ever had that

checked?---------Jackie

I've been supplementing DHEA at 200mg per day for several weeks

now. No dramatic noticeable effects, but perhaps it -- along with my

other supplements and chelation -- are having subtle benefits and

causing my mornings to not be quite so bad these days.

-------------I do believe that chelation is also stress on the adrenals, so

you may not notice dramatic improvement right away during chelation, with mild

adrenal support. And if it's been awhile, maybe you should retest your

adrenals, and include the sex hormones this time too, if you've never done that

before.-----Jackie

Or maybe the chronic mercury toxicity interferes with the normal

benefits of sleep, leading to extra malaise and brain fog in the

morning. I'm also extremely sensitive to getting enough sleep. If I

only get like 6 hours, I can be so tired the next day that I'm

dangerous to myself and others, and pretty much unable to hold an

intelligent conversation. But if I get too much sleep 9-10 hours, the

brain fog is often as thick as molasses.

------------I think I have been sleeping better since I've been working on

balancing my hormones, and not just adrenal ones.----------Jackie

Darren

[Guest guest]

>

> I am worse in the morning, too. I used to say that basically every

> morning upon awaking it felt like I'd been " hit by a truck. " Not that

> I was in physical pain, but that I was so out-of-it and had all of my

> chronic symptoms flared-up (brain fog, chest tightness/discomfort,

> general malaise, sluggishness). This would last all morning,

> sometimes all day, even after sleeping 8-10 sound hours of sleep.

> This lead me to having extensive sleep studies done, which revealed no

> helpful information.

>

> I'm a bit better in the mornings now, probably since my amalgams have

> been gone for 7+ months now, and I've been chelating. Still have bad

> brain fog most mornings, lasting many hours. Also, many mornings I

> just feel horrible in nonspecific ways -- hard to describe -- almost

> nausea like.

>

> I think this is adrenal related, and I have done saliva testing that

> shows my adrenals are dysfunctional, which I ascribe to mercury

> toxicity. I was expecting to see my cortisol level spike upon awaking

> and then quickly fall to below normal. HOWEVER, my saliva test shows

> HIGH CORTISOL in the morning and throughout the day, until the last

> reading drops below normal at bedtime.

****The " hit by a truck " feeling in the morning doesn't fit with the

" high cortisol " reading in the morning. Consider the possibility that

the day you took the test was an unusual day, or there was some

mistake make somewhere along the testing process.

****In the " Adrenal Fatigue " book suggests noting symptoms when

collecting saliva for tests and seeing if the symptoms correspond with

the cortisol readings. For example, the day that you collected saliva

were you having the hit by a truck feelings? It makes sense to me

that in the earlier stages of adrenal fatigue the adrenals could force

production on some days and fail on other days, which would lead to

different readings on different days.

****I used to find (years ago) that I would function for several days

and then crash ( " hit by a truck " was exactly how I described it). I

expect that the saliva test readings would be very different on the

days that I was functioning compared to the days when I crashed, but

never tested them.

****

But my DHEA is very low. So

> this is definitely adrenal fatigue, though it seems like it's in the

> early stages, thankfully. http://www.chronicfatigue.org/ASI%202.html

>

> But I'm still a bit confused why I feel so lousy in the morning, given

> my adrenals are pumping out a lot of cortisol. Maybe it's the low

> DHEA. I've been supplementing DHEA at 200mg per day for several weeks

> now. No dramatic noticeable effects, but perhaps it -- along with my

> other supplements and chelation -- are having subtle benefits and

> causing my mornings to not be quite so bad these days.

>

> Or maybe the chronic mercury toxicity interferes with the normal

> benefits of sleep, leading to extra malaise and brain fog in the

> morning. I'm also extremely sensitive to getting enough sleep. If I

> only get like 6 hours, I can be so tired the next day that I'm

> dangerous to myself and others, and pretty much unable to hold an

> intelligent conversation. But if I get too much sleep 9-10 hours, the

> brain fog is often as thick as molasses.

>

> Darren

>

[Guest guest]

> ------------This definitely sounds adrenal, and I used to feel

awful in the morning before I started adrenal support, but my cortisol

was low all day, and low DHEA, by the time I had it tested. So with

your high cortisol that you mention below, I don't know if you treat

it the same or not.----------Jackie

Thanks, Jackie. Yes, that's what I've been wondering for a while now,

too. How to treat high cortisol / low DHEA. I have tried small doses

of HC but noticed no effect. (Though I may not have had the right

dosage.) But when the test results came back showing abnormally high

cortisol for most of the day, it didn't seem logical to me to

supplement HC. Then again, the right treatment is not always

intuitive, so maybe supplementing with HC is the right approach.

> I'm a bit better in the mornings now, probably since my amalgams have

> been gone for 7+ months now, and I've been chelating. Still have bad

> brain fog most mornings, lasting many hours. Also, many mornings I

> just feel horrible in nonspecific ways -- hard to describe -- almost

> nausea like.

>

> ------------In some other thread, I think it was Dave and

mentioned the nausea and said it had something to do with the body

sending out too much ACTH? I know this is supposed to tell the

adrenals to make more cortisol, but maybe in your case it is sending

it out because of the low DHEA? And then as a side effect, your

adrenals make too much cortisol? Anyone want to comment? Does that

make any sense?---------Jackie

Interesting thoughts. I am convinced I have ACTH (HPA Axis) problems,

since I clearly have this " post-exertional malaise " , i.e., paradoxical

stress response, which caused me to have to quit vigorous exercise and

sports which I used to love.

> -------------Yes it does sound like stage 2, but I'm not sure how

they treat it when the cortisol levels are high. I wonder if ACE

would help you at all?-------Jackie

>

I've tried ACE a bit. Seems like a logical approach, regardless of

whether you are abnormally high or low in cortisol production, since

ACE aims at supporting and healing the adrenal glands, I believe.

I've tried taking a few products with ACE in them, but didn't notice

any positive effects. But ACE is definitely on my list of things to

possibly try again. I am trying to try things as systematically as

possible to try to evaluate the impact of each supplement -- not an

easy thing to do, though. (Actually, recently I've added DHEA,

Hydergine, and upped my antioxidants, all at the same time, so I am

not sure which, if any, are helping me to feel slightly better the

past few weeks.)

>

>

> But I'm still a bit confused why I feel so lousy in the morning, given

> my adrenals are pumping out a lot of cortisol. Maybe it's the low

> DHEA.

>

> -----------I'm not sure either. But too much cortisol isn't good

for you either. How are your blood sugar levels? And DHEA is the

precursor to testosterone, so you are probably low in that also. Have

you ever had that checked?---------Jackie

My blood sugar levels weren't too bad according to a test my D.C. ran

a while. And I eat a high protein, high fiber, low carb diet, to

answer one point that someone else raised.

But yes, I am low in testosterone. Which is why I'm not shy about

taking large amounts of DHEA to see what effect it has. So far,

nothing huge, but perhaps it is having a subtle benefit, as I am

feeling a tad better these past few weeks.

> -------------I do believe that chelation is also stress on the

adrenals, so you may not notice dramatic improvement right away during

chelation, with mild adrenal support. And if it's been awhile, maybe

you should retest your adrenals, and include the sex hormones this

time too, if you've never done that before.-----Jackie

My adrenal function test was just done a few months ago, so it's

pretty recent. mentioned the notion of day-to-day variability

in these readings. I've wondered how much that could have affected my

results. However, I had the same saliva test run about 10 months ago

-- when my symptoms were pretty much the same, just a bit worse -- and

it also showed abnormally high morning cortisol and abnormally low

nighttime cortisol. (There were only two measurement points for that

test, though, so I'm not sure if it stayed elevated all day.) But

anyway, I've seen basically the same trend on two independent tests,

so I think it's probably a decent indicator of what's going on -- and

again seems like Stage 2 adrenal fatigue.

And to answer 's other point, on the day of the most recent

saliva test, I felt pretty horrible in the morning. However, I think

that some of this horribleness (including a bit of nausea) can be

attributable to redistribution, since I just came off a round.

> ------------I think I have been sleeping better since I've been

working on balancing my hormones, and not just adrenal

ones.----------Jackie

I'm not sure how much effort to put into hormone balancing, since I've

tried so much of it over the years but not noticed too much impact.

I've tried testosterone lozenges, HC, T3 (which recently made me feel

worse, and also I am concerned about possible negative interactions

with T3 and DHEA), but with little or no positive benefit.

At this point, I've made very subtle improvements recently, but they

are enough that -- for the moment -- I am surviving in the workplace,

and able to tolerate moderate dose chelation (25mg - 50mg ALA), so I'm

focusing on chelation, chelation, chelation. And I think boosting my

antioxidants -- C and E -- is helping me withstand the effects of

mercury moving around, both during and after chelation. And I

recently added Hydergine, which I think is actually having a positive

impact.

But my adrenal results are still confusing. I'm trying not to get

bogged down by not understanding them, and just focus on the detox as

much as I can. I know that's not easy or possible for everyone,

depending on what condition they are in, so I'm sure many people

really need to get a boost from hormone balancing to handle chelation

long term.

Thanks everyone...

Darren

[Guest guest]

Darren, you might want to take a peek at 's adrenal fatigue book. I

think it will

answer some of your questions about high cortisol levels and options for

treatment.

http://www.amazon.com/Adrenal-Fatigue-Century-Stress-

Syndrome/dp/1890572152/ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8 & s=books & qid=1210083083 & sr=8-1