Are You Suffering From Adrenal Fatigue?
Do you feel run down or tired? Is getting up in the morning difficult? Do you spend most of the day tired, but get a boost of energy at night?
If any of these sounds like you, you may be experiencing a condition known as adrenal fatigue. Adrenals are the pyramid-shaped glands, located on top of your kidneys that are responsible for creating hormones that impact your blood sugar, blood pressure, usage of fat and protein, and control the way we react to stress. The most commonly known hormone created by the adrenals is cortisol. This is the hormone responsible for the fight or flight response. In moderate levels, cortisol is normal and healthy but in excess, it can be detrimental to your adrenals and overall health.
What are the Symptoms of Adrenal Fatigue in Women?
Characterized by low energy, high stress, irritability, cravings, and chronic fatigue – adrenal fatigue is one of the most widespread and commonly misdiagnosed conditions. It is believed that approximately 2/3rds of the population are currently dealing with adrenal fatigue, the majority of which do not even know they have it.
Symptoms include:
- Difficulty getting up each morning
- Fatigue
- Cravings for salty foods
- A weak immune system
- Dependence on stimulants
If these symptoms sound familiar you may be one of the many Americans experiencing adrenal fatigue. With the ever-increasing stress from our jobs, family and friends, technology, and the need to be plugged into social media adrenal fatigue seem almost inevitable.
The Impact of Adrenal Fatigue on Women
While the impact on the body’s hormone levels is already inconvenient, affecting your mood, sleep, and energy it can do more than that.
Adrenal fatigue can also negatively affect your immune system, making you susceptible to catching almost every cold or flu that goes around. And, you guessed it! Getting sick can also fatigue your adrenals, just adding to the aforementioned vicious cycle. The hormonal imbalance of your adrenal glands can interfere with your immune system and therefore increase your susceptibility to infection. This decreases your body’s ability to defend itself properly, so the stress you are experiencing can literally make you sick.
An elevated cortisol level can also have a direct impact on your weight. The increased fight or flight hormone, as well as the cravings associated with it, tell the body to begin storing fat. This fat often goes to the midsection, creating a stubborn ring around the hips and torso. As if dealing with the adrenal fatigue is not enough, weight and health are also impacted. These glands may be small, but their impact is all-encompassing.
Women Suffering from Adrenal Fatigue
While the symptoms of adrenal fatigue in women can make life more difficult, menopausal women often experience more severe symptoms.
Women approaching or going through menopause already experience difficulty sleeping due to hot flashes and general restlessness and are more prone to irritability and depression. Adrenal fatigue can compound these symptoms and exacerbate them – sometimes to the point of extreme fatigue and deep depression making it difficult for them to stay out of bed for more than a couple hours.
The adrenals are also responsible for making about 20% of the body’s reproductive hormones. Fatigued adrenals can negatively impact your hormones at any age, but for women already experiencing a decrease in hormone levels, this can make the symptoms they are already experiencing worse. It is a vicious cycle as the symptoms can cause adrenal fatigue, the adrenal fatigue can worsen the symptoms and the two can just compound on each other.
Women with thyroid disease, such as hypothyroid or hyperthyroid, may also more commonly experience adrenal fatigue. As the levels of the thyroid hormones directly impact your metabolism an increase or decrease can cause these little glands to try to keep up with the variation in thyroid levels. Those experiencing auto-immune thyroid issues may have a worsening of these symptoms as the auto-immune disorder also affects adrenal function.
Testing for Adrenal Fatigue
If you are wanting to determine if you are experiencing adrenal fatigue or our medical practitioners suspect that you are suffering from adrenal fatigue, we can run saliva tests to diagnose it. Adrenal function is most easily tested through cortisol as this is a hormone that regularly fluctuates during the day. The test is taken at various points throughout the day to compare to an ideal cortisol curve to determine if you have adrenal fatigue and to what extent. By understanding our adrenal fatigue and what impacts it the practitioners here are Tampa Rejuvenation are able to customize a treatment protocol to address symptoms and reverse your adrenal fatigue.
In a healthy woman, cortisol levels are naturally highest in the morning, decreasing throughout the day so that by the time we are ready to go to sleep our cortisol levels are at their lowest point. However, if your adrenal glands are fatigued you may experience the reverse having lower cortisol levels in the morning and higher levels at night. In addition to stress management, dietary modification, and alleviation of some stressors many women choose to treat with hormone replacement therapy This will alleviate some of the symptoms that are negatively impacting the adrenal function as well as makeup for the hormones the fatigues adrenals are not creating. By assessing and treating each patient as a whole we are able to determine the source of the fatigue and make the necessary changes to reverse your symptoms. Our goal for every patient is for them to sleep well, have a balanced mood, and maintain their energy throughout the day.
Schedule an Appointment Today!
Call to schedule your free consultation to learn more about adrenal fatigue and other hormonal imbalances. Our medical staff is specially trained to look deeper into your health and to diagnose, and treat, adrenal fatigue and other hormonal imbalances. The practitioner will then interpret the tests and create a comprehensive treatment plan to address your adrenal fatigue and the many other factors that can influence them.