Re: My adrenal fatigue story, 22 and scared because it seems like no one recovers from this.

ithappens,

You’ll probably be glad to know that there are cases eerily similar to yours. Before reading your post, I didn’t think anyone had gone through some of the things I had. But apparently it happens…

Because I’m 27 years old now and I took Accutane at about 20 years old to help clear an Acne problem that was lingering since I was about 17. It got really bad at about 20 for some reason, spreading to my face as cystic acne. I also had it very bad on my shoulders throughout my teenage years. I took Accutane and it cleared my Acne but it gave me pretty much all of the bad psychological side effects while on it. Some cleared coming off of it, some didn’t, some new ones came out of it…

If you’re willing to trust what I can tell you from experience I’ll say these things.

I have chased whatever “illness” you seem to be describing for years since the fallout. I crashed hard much like you describe, and it came out of nowhere seemingly, almost overnight. I couldn’t do ANY of the things I was doing before. I developed pale skin, very dark under eye, bad responses to foods – almost allergenic or diabetic type, course hair and skin, cold extremities, lack of sexual desire and tremendous ED, rare infections, etc. Almost like my whole body just shut right down on me all of a sudden. I went to doctor after doctor. Tried drug after drug. Realized that I needed to start doing my own research and figuring out what this actually was because nothing was working, answers were different from each doctor, and my health was impacting my life greatly.

Unless someone has recommended this endocrinologist, or unless you want to see it for yourself, keep in mind that you will probably not get the answers you need from this doctor. The so called “hormone specialists” are usually bull headed and number driven (within a numbers system that isn’t accurate). I highly recommend you get a saliva panel done from DT at canaryclub.org. Don’t even play around with doctors yet. Get a hormone test that will mean something to you. This test will show your cortisol intervals, thyroid, and estrogen/testosterone ratio. While doctors won’t give it the light of day, you have it as your inspiration. What doctors don’t know is that they tend to be more accurate than blood tests for everything but sex hormones. Even sex hormones will show at least what’s wrong although amplified from what I’ve seen. These hormones do their work in your saliva, not the blood.
http://thyroid.about.com/od/gettestedanddiagnosed/a/salivatesting.htm.
For example, I was getting completely different blood hormone results from saliva. Blood showed within range (all an endo cares about), while saliva showed a MESS.

Yes that’s right, I took the above test when all else was failing. I had almost lost my job at the time…

What did the results show? Flatlined cortisol (adrenal) readings across four intervals of the day. Hashi’s thyroiditis with a sky rocketing TSH with low FT3s and FT4s, and estrogen dominance of an 80 year old man. I’m not kidding it finally showed what I was feeling. This was my ammunition. The problem is, many doctors don’t look at saliva tests because they could get in serious trouble for doing so. Whatever you do, don’t take blood tests as accurate. You need saliva tests side-by-side to see the greater picture. But this story gets wider let me say…

The next steps aren’t clearly defined for everyone. But if your hormones are out of whack you need to know why. I have been on hydrocortisone (steroid replacement for cortisol), dessicated thyroid (natural pig thyroid diced), and a prescribed aromotase inhibitor (to drop estrogen and improve testosterone – it’s a ratio). All of them have made it so that I can cope. It’s been months and I feel better. But nowhere near I did, still. And I’m at a standstill. It has been clear that all of these things are a bandaid. There is something else going on.

I must say - watch out for the hormone spiral. Hormones are a symptom too. If your hormones are out of whack, they follow your body and how it is operating. If your body is sluggish, your hormones will be too. Only exception is pituitary (and I chased this for a while realizing it wasn’t it).

I think I’ve found my answer and some people in this thread have pointed it out to you. Acne was probably your first sign but your story seems to indicate you were a healthy person growing up. Anyways, that was my first sign and I wish I knew more of why the acne was there to begin with.

You would be wise to try a very strict detox diet with Candida Albicans in mind because that’s what I’m looking at now. I think the acne started because of toxins in my body, quite possibly a build up of Candida at the time. You will want to do some PH tests as well to see where your body is in terms of acidity. If you’re like me, you have Candida, toxins, and a bad PH. It’s all about reversing these things. You may need hormone support while you do it though… it sounds like you’re in rough shape. Get that saliva test done to start, and do a search for a Candida questionnaire online, get some PH strips. Try this too – cut out items with Sugar and sodium to see how you feel, do you still have the downs? How about hot water with lemon how does that make you feel?

And have you ever been on Antibiotics for a long period? The reason I ask is because my derm put me on Minocin for about 6 months, an antibiotic, to try and get rid of my acne. Did you know that this is how Candida grows out of control? Antibiotics kill the same guys that protect Yeast overgrowth.
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