Saturday, July 30, 2005

More about the adrenals, chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia

I've studied up a bit on the affect of prolonged stress on the adrenals and cortisol in relation to my partner's panix-anxiety -- we were able to successfully treat him based on our findings and coupled with the male infertility vitamin supplements he's been off of Paxil and without any big attacks for almost 2 years now.

So, this cortisol thing for me has really piqued my interest. My partner and I have similar lifestyles obviously (we eat, live and work together) so what is bad for the gander is bad for the goose. I've been looking at medical articles this afternoon about the adrenals and progesterone and fertility and I found a few more things that might interest you.

Chronic Fatigue is associated with elevated cortisol and decreased adrenal function

(Hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal axis dysfunction in chronic fatigue syndrome, and the effects of low-dose hydrocortisone therapy)

I don't think I've got this but decreased adrenal function is also associated in a different type of pattern as having low estrogen and progesterone with lesser amounts of LH released. I don't have amenorrhea, my LH appears to be fine I think based on my fertility monitor and trying to use its sticks prior to my period being due, a time of the cycle where the LH normal increases. Still it is interesting to read the summary.

(Isolated adrenocorticotropin deficiency presenting as primary infertility.)

Fibromalgia patients have a similar pattern of but with lowered estrogen. Still, it seems to be related to these other patterns in terms of what happens with the hormones. The elevated prolactin was interesting here. Also, before I started working with a naturopathic doc a few years ago, part of my PMS set of symptoms including burning in my extremeties, my partner couldn't touch me hardly at all because it was painful to me. Evidently "Psychological stress and hormonal changes also may be possible causes of fibromyalgia."

(Secretory pattern of GH, TSH, thyroid hormones, ACTH, cortisol, FSH, and LH in patients with fibromyalgia syndrome following systemic injection of the relevant hypothalamic-releasing hormones.)

At any rate, perhaps I've been periodically dipping into deeper levels of adrenal exhaustion, insufficiency and depletion. Qigong, the dietary changes and acupuncture will all help. What I found though was that there is an additional supplement that can help.

L-Carnetine, one of the supplements that is commonly included in the MFI vitamin regime, also helps to treat a variety of issues including chronic fatigue syndrome.

(L-Carnitine: therapeutic applications of a conditionally-essential amino acid.)

"Although L-carnitine deficiency is an infrequent problem in a healthy, well-nourished population consuming adequate protein, many individuals within the population appear to be somewhere along a continuum, characterized by mild deficiency at one extreme, and tissue pathology at the other."

We have some L-carnetine in the cabinet downstairs and I ran down and took one. I think The Infertility Cure might have mentioned this supplement as well, or else it was Arginine. Very interesting. We'll have to see what regular supplementation will do to help me out. I'm so freaking tired all the time since the miscarriage, even worse than prior when I was just waiting to miscarry.

There was an Italian study from a while back that tried treating women at risk of miscarriage with carnetine and it seems like it helped cause some improvements in the quality of their blood, specifically myoglobulin which helps carry iron:

[Serum myoglobin in pregnant women treated with tocolytics and carnitine]


Here's an article that mention chronic fatigue, miscarriage and infertility:

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Fibromyalgia, and Autoimmune Thyroid Disease

I bet something will show up in my bloodwork next week. When I had my pooled progesterone checked a couple years ago and I got the results back I was like "I told you so." go figure that reproductive endocrinologists aren't good at figuring out the pathology of normal endocrine issues. They like to just go for the big guns and it is so like they say, when you are a hammer everything looks like a nail.


GENERAL ADRENAL INFO

Your Adrenal Glands

Adrenal Glands - Wikipedia

Anatomy of the Adrenal Gland (PDF)

adrenal gland from Columbia Encyclopedia

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Wow, we're nearly researchign the same thing. My friend Bonnie has FMS, I am going to share with her your findings. Her blog is linked on mine.