Table of Contents[Hide][Show]
- Why Adrenal Health is So Important
- Dependence on Sunglasses
- Hollow Cheeks
- Lines in the Fingertips
- Pale Lips
- Balding Lower Legs
- Unexplained Back or Knee Pain
- QUICKLY Get Relief From Adrenal Fatigue
- Get to bed no later than 10:30 pm
- Throw out the processed salt and replace with sea salt
- Eliminate coffee and refined sugar from your diet
- Reduce dependence on grains
You’d have to be living under a rock not to notice that adrenal fatigue and adrenal problems, in general, are at epidemic proportions in our modern culture.
Just notice how nearly every gas station sells energy drinks and shots and there is a coffee shop on practically every corner. The average American now consumes a whopping 180 lbs per year of refined sugars. These signs surely provide sufficient evidence.
By the way, the 180 lbs of sugar per year figure is a shocking 27% increase just since 2003 when sugar consumption was 142 lbs per person per year!
Caffeine and sugar consumed in excess amounts will sucker punch your adrenal glands faster than just about anything else, no doubt about it.
I’ve read a lot of articles about the adrenal glands and adrenal fatigue over the years. Most of them focus on the symptoms which include excessive fatigue, hair loss, sleep problems, difficulty getting going in the morning, etc. You know the drill.
What I haven’t seen as much written about is why it is so critical to keep these two walnut-sized glands at the top of your kidneys happy and healthy and how to spot the freight train of adrenal fatigue coming full speed down the tracks and about to smack your life upside the head.
Fact is, once you are losing your hair, can’t sleep at night or get off the couch during the day, adrenal fatigue has already sucked the “life” out of your life. At that point, mustering the strength and courage to reverse course can be quite daunting indeed.
Why Adrenal Health is So Important
A few years ago, I attended the Wise Traditions Conference hosted annually by the Weston A. Price Foundation. One of the most interesting lectures I attended during that information-packed weekend was given by Dr. Bruce Rind MD, a holistic endocrinologist whose talk focused on spotting and reversing thyroid and adrenal problems.
I learned from Dr. Rind that the health of the thyroid gland and the adrenal glands is inextricably linked. If one goes south, the other one probably will too and in very short order.
Adrenal problems can frequently masquerade as thyroid problems. As a result, if the adrenal glands are experiencing high levels of stress day in and day out from lack of sleep, too much sugar and caffeine in the diet and a rush rush lifestyle loaded with carbohydrate-heavy processed foods, thyroid gland problems will eventually manifest along with the adrenal problems. Panic attacks may occur as well.
Why is this such a big problem?
Because thyroid problems often end up going hand in hand with insulin resistance problems. The development of insulin resistance is a BIG problem as this has a direct effect on longevity.
Once insulin resistance and blood sugar problems enter the picture, the domino effect to Metabolic Syndrome takes place, a fancy name for a group of risk factors which includes heart disease, stroke, and Type 2 diabetes.
Now that we know why we need to keep the adrenal glands in ship shape and why ignoring this problem will only lead to more serious and imbalanced endocrine problems in the future, let’s explore the early signs of adrenal problems.
As you can see, a person’s overall hormonal balance is extremely intricate and one endocrine disorder frequently portends another then another. Hence, keeping one’s adrenal glands from becoming overly fatigued is extremely important as the seemingly insignificant signs of early adrenal dysfunction and insufficiency can rapidly start a person into a downward spiral to Metabolic Syndrome.
When does one cup of coffee in the morning or that afternoon pick me up candy bar suddenly indicate a major problem on the horizon?
Here are a few lesser-known signs of adrenal fatigue as described by Dr. Rind in his Wise Traditions lecture and as written in my notes:
Dependence on Sunglasses
Are you one of those people who can’t stand to be out in the bright, midday sun without your shades? Oversensitivity of the eyes to bright sunlight is a sign of adrenal problems from a chronic sodium-potassium imbalance which prevents the pupils from properly constricting in response to bright light.
The good news is that being out in the midday sun with no sunglasses is a way to strengthen the adrenals. When I do errands, I try to leave my sunglasses in the car and walk to and from the stores so that my eyes get a good dose of unobstructed sunlight.
I’ve noticed that my eyes have become significantly less sensitive to sunlight over the years as my diet has improved with the general banishment of refined sugars and carbohydrates in my home. While I still wear sunnies for safety reasons to reduce the glare while driving, I frequently find myself forgetting to put them on at all on very sunny days.
Hollow Cheeks
This young person shown in the picture to the left has some serious adrenal fatigue! My bet is that there is a lot of sugar and caffeine going on in that diet. Being young is no protection from the ravages of hormonal disruption. If you find your cheeks hollowing out, take a look at your diet pronto.
Skip the collagen injections and lose the sugar, caffeine, and refined carbohydrates instead!
Lines in the Fingertips
Turn your hand over and examine the skin of the fingertips. Do you see nice, plump fingertips or is the skin covered with vertical lines? If they are nice and plump, that is a good sign for your adrenals. Lots of vertical lines in your fingertips indicate adrenal stress.
My own fingertips used to be quite lined years ago, but getting off refined sugar plumped them out nicely within a few months.
Pale Lips
I have a friend who once told me that after about age 30, a woman’s lips disappear into the back of her head! This was a colorful way of saying that lipstick was mandatory after a certain age.
I don’t agree! Lips that have no color whatsoever is not always an age thing. It can also be a sign of weak adrenals. When refined grains and sugar are eliminated and any grains that are eaten are properly prepared with minimal to no caffeine in the diet, most women are delighted to see a youthful pink return to their lips once again!
One of the most striking things I noticed when I went on the GAPS Diet a few years back was how the color flooded into my face and lips. Clearly, my adrenals were on the mend!
Even now, I can tell within an hour or two if my adrenals have been stressed by the meal I just ate…my lips go pale almost immediately. Watch this yourself. You will be amazed at how quickly the amount of color in your lips will indicate how your adrenals are feeling at that moment.
Balding Lower Legs
Do you have bald patches on your lower arms and legs or sparser hair in those areas than you used to (particularly men)? This could be a sign of adrenal fatigue.
Boys entering puberty with sparser beards and leg/arm hair than their peers are frequently those with low adrenal function and an overall lower drive to achieve.
Unexplained Back or Knee Pain
Muscle weakness is a frequent sign of adrenal insufficiency. Unexplained back or knee pain with no accompanying structural defect may indicate weakness of the muscles supporting the pelvis and/or knees.
In the case of lower back pain, chronic adrenal stress leads to weakness in the muscles which support the pelvis causing the pelvis to subluxate in a posterior direction. In other words, the lower back pain has nothing to do with the lower back and everything to do with muscular instability in the pelvis.
QUICKLY Get Relief From Adrenal Fatigue
If you suspect that you have adrenal fatigue, it would be a good idea to get a holistic physician to do a thorough examination and consultation. Hormone problems are incredibly intractable conditions to reverse and professional advice is warranted in most cases.
In the meantime, you can quickly provide your adrenals relief if you do the following:
Get to bed no later than 10:30 pm
This piece of advice was given to me by an Ayurvedic MD over 15 years ago. It is still one of the best pieces of advice any doctor has ever given me. She explained how the hormone system cleanses between 11 pm and 1 am (generally speaking) and if you are not asleep during this time, the flushing process will not take place, essentially backing up the hormone system with toxins.
Throw out the processed salt and replace with sea salt
The adrenals need GOOD salt. Use sea salt to taste in your dishes at home and your adrenals will thank you!
It doesn’t matter the color either! Just make sure it’s not white.
Eliminate coffee and refined sugar from your diet
This is a simple piece of advice but easily ignored in our crazy modern lives. Continue with the daily caffeine/sugar fixes, and you WILL have serious hormonal issues down the road if you don’t already. Coffee has already been linked to blood sugar issues (sorry bulletproof coffee fans). Combine this with a sugar-filled diet and the Metabolic Syndrome freight train has left the station.
Is it really that hard to replace that cup of Joe with dandelion coffee or green tea and the white sugar/high fructose corn syrup with natural alternatives like raw honey? Do it today!
Reduce dependence on grains
The Western diet is overly heavy in grains and starches which tax the adrenals when consumed to excess. Focus the diet on clean meats, organic and biodynamic vegetables and fruits, seeds, nuts, eggs, and grass-fed dairy. You will very soon feel the energy that comes with a significantly reduced digestive burden and begin to regain more youthful vitality that comes with healthy adrenals!
References
Dr. Bruce Rind MD, Lecture at Wise Traditions Conference
CBS News: Coffee and Blood Sugar
More Information
Vitamin D Deficiency Signs Most People Miss
Rethinking Fatigue: What Your Adrenals are REALLY Telling You
Adrenal Exhaustion: A National Epidemic
I can attest to the coffee issue… it wasn't too long ago that I NEEDED my morning coffee to get going. Now, I have switched to green tea/herbal teas and I wake up refreshed! If I skip my morning tea, I can still function normally- I could never have done that while drinking coffee! Thanks for the great tips.
I've always worn sunglasses because I thought I was sensitive because of my contact lens. However, within the last year, I've been working on getting the sugar out of my diet, not that I eat much, rather I focus on eating a lot more veggies. And, I have noticed that the sun doesn't bother my eyes as much.
To be honest, I do have a really hard time giving up my one cup of coffee daily. I tried it during one of my pregnancies and was absolutely miserable for a month. It was not a pretty sight! I will try the green tea and see how that works, but keep the coffee for now.
I think Modern Alternative Mama talked about drinking sea salt in water daily which I've been doing. I feel very refreshed when I do it.
Green tea has caffeine, don’t know why everyone here is saying it’s okay including the author of the article…
Shelli, you are very brave to share this story. Hopefully, your experiences can help many others who are reading these comments. You are very right .. fixing the problem before the adrenals get completely wiped out is so very important. Once you are into a severe adrenal fatigue situation, it is much more difficult to rectify.
Another good indication of adrenal fatigue is to take the tip of pen or other similarly blunt object and draw it across the stomach from one side to the other, with only slight pressure (this shouldn't hurt). In normal people a red line will appear and fade in a few minutes. If the adrenals are fatigued, the red line will develop white lines on either side which will continue to spread out away from the red line.
I've been suffering from severe adrenal fatigue for about 7 years now. When I tried the line trick I failed it miserably. My fatigued adrenals have lead to hypothyroidism. I also have instances of insulin resistance, but I can control it with diet. I went 5 years sleeping 4 hours or less each night.
Diet plays a huge role in how I feel. Drinking a cup of coffee causes me to feel like someone has punched a hole in my "gas tank." A lot of carbohydrates makes me feel miserable – I do much better with higher protein and some fat. Exercise is very difficult because even small amounts literally makes me feel like I've been hit by a bus.
It messes with every function of your body. It has been very hard for me to begin recovery because there aren't many doctors around me that understand it, and none have been successful in treating me for it.
It's difficult to cope with adrenal fatigue because people generally cannot see anything wrong with you, they just think you're being lazy. And the worse it gets, the less you're able to do, the more lazy they think you are.
It's really been an uphill battle for me. I think people need to be made more aware of this condition so they can take steps to avoid it.
oh my goodness, i did not know that line trick! I have asked my doctor many times why if i scratch my arm ect why it spreads and gets so red. They never know. I always demonstrate by doing such with a pen or my finger nail on my arm.. it gets huge and stays for a long time. They just tell me it will pass.
I was diagnosed a few years back with hypo, I am now trying to fix it .. but it is good to know to look at my adreals too.. I am only 23 and do not want to have this issue all my life!
try going to http://www.adrenalfatigue.org and you will find a lot of good info about treating this condition and even some products to help you recover!
Dr. Brouse in Oregon has been helping me since May of last year. He is a chiropractor. You can google him. I feel much better, but still have episodes here and there, but 90% better. 100% for a month or two at a time. But then I revert back to old diet, minus the caffeine and things eventually come back in a milder way without some sypmtoms. Hope that helps.
Hi…I too suffer with Adrenal Fatigue for many years…Asthma/Croup as a kid.
I treat my patients with great, wholefood supplements.
Re the excercises…SLOW AND STEADY! walk,walk,walk…no stenuous exercises for a while, it’ll burn you out. LESS is MORE.
Get checked for HEAVY METAL toxicity too. 🙂
GREENS in meal plan, best thing.
Thanks for your comment. I noticed that you wrote about how exercising wipes you out. I started regular exercise the past 4 weeks and I always feel like I’ve been hit by a truck! I wonder If I should stop for a while and just walk??? I need to start GAPS. I am pretty sure of that.
Julie you should definitely stop any hard workouts if your adrenals are tapped. I had a doctor tell me that I just needed to keep working out when I told him the exact thing you just said. What I did instead was I went and found a new provider, a nurse practitioner with experience that enabled her to tell me that working out should always, in the end, make you feel better, not worse. If your adrenals are in need of rest and repair, intense exercise will only add to their burden. Gentle walking should be fine as long as you are not feeling fatigued from it.
Even drinking plain water becomes difficult when your adrenals are fatigued. Try a homemade electrolyte drink: the juice of one lemon, 1-2 T honey and 1/2-1 teaspoon salt per quart of pure water (non-chlorinated/fluoridated preferably) and drink liberally. Just be sure you are using real salt, NOT table salt. Redmond’s Real salt, Himalayan Pink salt, Celtic gray salt, something with it’s minerals still intact.
Great advice!
I have been treated by an acupuncturist (who is highly recommended among so many of my friends). He told me in my first visit that my problem was with my gall bladder, pancreas, and kidneys.. and that my inability to process sugar correctly was throwing off my hormones. His treatment has been amazing. He said I should stop feeling my heart palpitations with the first few days after my first session.. and they have reduced greatly. I should be on the road to recovery in 3 sessions. I’ll let you know how it goes!
Hi Megan, part of it could be that, but I think you will notice over time that you forget to even put them on as your eyes will be adjusting much more quickly to bright light.
I've definitely noticed in a difference in how I feel now that I've avoided carbs, refined sugars, and the caffeine. I do love coffee though, so when I'm "allowed" to have these things again, it will be interesting to see if that gets put back into the diet.
Question: could the sun sensitivity also just be an over-reliance on sunglasses? I've worn mine religiously for the past 6 years and so when I am out in the sun without them, it just takes some getting used to again, but initially the brightness is quite challenging.
Hi Linda, drinking coffee is of course your personal choice. I can say though that if I drank even a half a cup of coffee a day, my hormones would be a complete mess. You should try going off it and see how much better you will feel.
Sarah, what about drinking organic decaf? Same issues? Is it the coffee that is the problem or the caffeine?
Great info! Thank you! When coffee beans are roasted they produce some major by products that are not good. Cafestol and carcinogens to name a few. I have severe adrenal fatigue. I found a product that gives me energy by helping my body produce it naturally instead of pushing me like caffeine. I love it because it comes with all these super fruits too. We need products like these since they have NO artificial anything which to me is so important when my body is already taxed with detoxing. Plus since taking it I have lost a lot of weight due to the increased energy maybe?? If anyone wants some info on this I can send you some info I guess. My phone is 509-795-0378. I hope everyone gets better soon. Blessings to ALL
post the name of the product here please
So… I take it that you mean decaf is still not good? Sorry to be asking but you didn’t really answer Sharon’s question directly.
I don't have any of these symptoms. Sorry, not giving up my little bit of coffee I drink in the morning. I never put sugar or any of the crazy things people load their coffee with and I don't buy coffee at coffee shops or restaurants. I make my own at home.
Sometimes I think people go to far to extremes with issues like this. A little coffee once a day isn't going to hurt you.
I agree with this. I keep it very simple and to a minimum. I have had adrenal fatigue in the past, but now I simply do not feel like I did back then (hypoglycemic, poor sleep, shaky, MAJOR salt cravings). I am so much better. I’ve been off coffee for a long time and honestly, I just don’t notice that much difference.
Linda, you should be very thankful you don’t have any of these symptoms!! But for those of us that do this is awesome advice! Keep drinking your coffee and enjoy your health…something that many of us don’t have. A little coffee might not hurt you but it will certainly do damage to some of us.
@Linda: I suffer from adrenal fatigue brought on by an overload of corticosteroid injections and any caffeine aggravates the condition. It’s good to hear that you are so healthy but I’m not sure that you are in the position to give medical guidance to those of us who suffer from this often debilitating condition. In fact, why you are weighing in on this at all is odd.
I have to agree with the others — I have spent the last two 1/2 years getting back my health after some sever adrenal fatigue. Drinking just one cup of coffee would have caused me to feel weak, shaky and bad for an entire day. Believe me, I love coffee, and I tried multiple times to add it back to my diet but just felt too bad every time I drank it. Healthy people who do not suffer from this have no idea what it is like to be in the shoes of someone with adrenal fatigue.
Me,’too! I love love love coffee! But I pay dearly for every cup. I had a small cup of iced coffee earlier this week, and all the next day I had to rest and detox before I was able to function normally again.
An interesting site regarding coffee is called bulletproof coffee. The creator is a bio hacker. Hr recommends Kerrygold grassfed butter mixed with MCT oil. Froth it in a blender or a hand held Aerolatte gadget. The coffee tastes wonderful and he talks about the nutritional value of the concoction. His biggest concern is mycotoxins in coffee, which can make a huge difference in how you feel, even if you use expensive coffee. The coffee makes you mentally alert without the jitters.You are not hungry for hours. He takes adrenal supplements with 1/4 to 1/2 tsp of Himalayan salt in a glass of water upon arising.
Adrenals love salt and I have found when I’m fatigued, I take the salt in the water and feel much better. Dr. David Brownstein has a book out regarding it.
what adrenal supplements does he take?
If you are talking about the founder and bio hacker of bullet proof coffee go to his website from the same name and do a search. He has mentioned it. I don’t use them.
How do yout hink the coffee manages to make you alert? Because it isnt the coffee or caffeine thats doing it, it’s what they are doing to the adrenals; stimulating them to make more cortisol than usual. That extra cortisol helps maintain blood sugar, hence the so called, not hu gry for hours. eventually, tje adrenals cant make that extra cortisol if you are not fueling them with the proper nutrients amd tou get low cortisol. So, drinking any kind of coffee is not a good idea, ever. Try stabilising blood sugar with protein/good fat foods, eat every couple hours. If youre adrenals are healthy, you are eating enough, then you shouldnt need coffee.
Yes a little can do more than hurt, it can land someone in the hospital and lead them to serious spells of rage, suicidal tendencies, and other things. Why are you writing if you dnt have an adrenal problem? This advice is for those who do. I hope you never have to experience what just a little caffeine can do to someone with adrenal fatigue.
Totally agree
Unless it does. Coffee isn’t good – I loved it too and for some people well they just can not have even a little. You do you. If it doesn’t bother you, yay for you. But there are so many things that it can affect in people. it’s better to not have.
I would also add that you can replace coffee with kombucha or other fermented drinks. This is a source of natural energy AND will promote healing. This is what we have done and it really helps us.
Thanks for the great article….I think I have almost all of these symptoms. I knew I had thyroid and pituitary problems, but I never considered my adrenals. I guess they all tie in!
Primary Care doctors don’t like to address these issues it seems. They attribute it to older age or needing to exercise and lose weight. What type of doctor or other practitioner can we see to address insulin resistance and adrenal fatigue?
Thank you!!!!!!