Re: Anyone know of a good endocrinologist in the Seattle area?

I have a new endocrinologist that I like very much in Seattle. His name is Joseph Saitta and works at Pacific Medical Centres. He works through three of there offices, downtown (next to Swedish Hospital), Kirkland and Northgate. 206) 505-1101

Someone was saying that you do not want to have a endrocrinologist for adrenal fatigue issue's, so I am assuming that you might want treatment for adrenal fatigue. I have a bit of an interesting story there which I will comment on very briefly.

I started seeing a naturopath 2 years ago, and after one test on my hormone levels it was decided that I have adrenal fatigue. This made a lot of sense to me given my history of stress etc - I was totally into the ideal that I had adrenal fatigue (I had a ton of brain fog etc and it felt identical to hypoglycemia symptoms - indeed they mirror each other very much..... She started me on supplemental Isocort (cortisol glandular sold over the counter at Tahoma Clinic dispensary - Renton) and licorice.... Over the two years I was becoming sicker and sicker and sicker and I finally just syoped going to see her because she was totally ignoring the fact that I was getting worse, and she never bothered to do any further tests on my cortisol levels etc.....

I ended up finding Dr Saitta, was at first cautious of any "common sense" that a allopathic doctor (standard M.D.) might have to say (they are mostly considered brainwashed and idiots in the heavy "hippie naturopath circles" in which I was being influenced by at the time)... Anyway to make a long story short, Dr Saitta is a M.D. that has more of a intigrative view.... He explained to me that he wanted me to go off all adrenal supplement's, wait a few weeks till it was out of my system then do a proper ACTH test on my adrenals to see if they were capable of mounting a good strong level of cortisol on there own when subjected to stress. I agreed.

I was found to have perfectly normal adrenals (dispite the constant "low blood sugar" I kept having (I never bought a home monitor to know my blood Sugar was really doing). He ran the test again a month later and same results - my adrenals were fine. Turned out they never were my problem, I had horrid candida - candida that was getting worse every day from the use of cortisol. Cortisol weakens the immune system... My naturopathic doctor was making me very ill because she WANTED to believe my problem was adrenals. Coincidently she ran a candida test on me too (at my request) and it came up negitive she never treated me for that. The funny thing here is that my naturopath is concidered a great doc in her circle's. She was one of the more objective, rational ones. I'm not bashing naturopaths either, my current preferred care provider is one (Chris Krumm) and he is the one who sent me to the endocrinologist.

The point is that, yes, most endocrinologist's don't actually believe in "adrenal fatigue" but they sure sh*t believe in Adrenal Insufficiancy (and will treat accordingly) which is just early Addisons. The books out there on "adrenal fatigue" are misrepresenting what many of them think and are taught. For instance they are taught to test carefully in regards to the adrenals because if you supplement the body with cortisol you don't need you actually weaken those glands. The adrenals are glands that are NOT like other organs that are strengthened by assisting them - they are made lazy by cortisol they don't require!!! There is very serious reason to be cautious. To make matters worse (as in my case), cortisol levels shift in the body constantly. They are never at steady levels throughout a day (or even morning hours when standard cortisol is checked). My old naturopath should have known this. Why didn't she - or was she being "brainwashed" by her own circle??? You don't rush in and just start dowsing a body that has strong levels of cortisol going by one little cortisol test - let alone without). There are a lot of health problems out there that can mimic hypoglycemia and also cause brain fog etc. Unless you have blood Sugar tests coming up in the very low blood Sugar range - and consistantly - look at different reasons for your symptoms.

So anyway, if you are wondering about your adrenals have some ACTH testing done and believe what you see. Redo it over and over if you need to. But don't just poo poo standard medicine in reguards to the adrenals. By the way, the adrenals are the HARDIEST glands we have. They are workhorses and nearly die before they "weaken". Study after study show that they are much much more likely to have high output before ever having the low output taughted by a few popular books. The adrenals run high than die. Rarely do they "weaken" and just chug along at a slow pace causing us fatigue. The fatigue is usually something else. Fatigue is much more likely to be from a liver congestion issue (in my case liver congestion from candida toxins).

Anyway, in regards to the adrenals, I think the naturopathic docs in general are doing a lot of harm. They are supposed to be tuning into the body and tweaking it just enough to get it working for itself again. In regards to "adrenal fatigue" I think they need to wisen up and do more studying rather than following. They shouldn't be treating things that are not there just to "create business" or the mystic of healing problems standards doc "can't". It about put me in the ditch. I have deeper problems now due to the "adrenal fatigue" treatment. The candida was driven deeper, my liver became much more toxic, the toxins harmed my eyesight, I lost years to illness I did not need to...

Anyway. Good luck, and Call Dr. Saitta if you still need a doc. He's one of these docs that likes to listen, he makes you feel comfortable, he takes the time to discuss things, and he make sure your questions are answered. I'm also hypothyroid and he has no problem with the use of natural Armour etc (he also goes by the newer standards in testing there - stricture standards).









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