Date:   3/2/2013 4:21:50 PM ( 12 y ago)
Hits:   2,204
URL:   https://www.curezone.org/forums/fm.asp?i=2042023

This sums it up really..enjoy folks


I have treated many patients with Cortef or another product Hydrocortisol (compounded as an instant release (IR) or sustained release (SR) version) for years. I have two warnings.

From an MD:

1. Cortisol deficiency is more often than not a sign of an underlying problem and not the primary problem. The primary problem is your body's natural response to stress. I know your doc told you the same thing but it is worth repeating. The goal is to get off the cortisol and to use the cortef and the energy it provides to fix the original problem. To me it is like taking a diet pill to lose weight. Sure, it makes you lose weight, but ask anyone who knows about metabolism and they will all tell you it is not a good idea to rely on diet pills to lose weight permanently because of the negative effects of starving the body and the subsequent negative effects on the muscle mass.

Anyway, in my experience it is almost impossible to find the mental clarity and physicial strength to fix the stressors in one's life without the cortisol replacement in some cases, but it is important to see cortisol deficiency as a sign of an underlying problem, to fix the underlying problem, and then come off the cortisol.

2. I have many patients who love how they feel on cortisol. For the first time in a while they have energy, stamina, clarity. If they miss a pill or forget it they feel horrible almost immediately. A dependence on "the pill" to feel good develops in that environment very quickly. I assume you have read Dr. Wilson's book on Adrenal Fatigue and see that he only briefly mentions cortisol as a stepping stone to get through the process of healing your adrenal fatigue. Don't allow yourself to rely on the cortef for long-term treatment as it can and does cause problems long-term.

The potency as a steroid of cortef is low enough to be safely used at the dose you listed or below (for example prednisone, another cortisone is very much more potent and not generally safe for long-term use). They are not the same thing because of their relative potency differences, so you could use cortef safely for much longer, but again, obese people shouldn't rely on diet pills to make long-term weight loss possible, smokers shouldn't wear a patch for ever to keep off nicotine, alcoholics shouldn't take antabuse to keep from drinking forever and Adrenal Fatigue patients shouldn't take cortef (cortisol) long-term. Your adrenals can heal, but it will require a lifestyle change to make it happen. You can fix the problem that lead to your disease.

Read the adrenal fatigue book until the spine is worn out, memorize the book. Here is the best way I have found to explain adrenal fatigue to my patients (I am a FP doc who recognizes that 90 percent of disease is nutrition or stress induced). Our bodies are complex machines, designed or evolved to function in a different environment than we are asking them to function.

If you are in the designed camp you know the design was for a time when the expectation of life was to wander through a pleasurable existence with all our needs met and very little if any stress (no bills, no illness, no mcdonalds) and from the evoltionary camp (yea, us) we were evolved to be part of the natural cycles and part of the food chain. Our existence was uniquely tied to the fluxes of our food sources and our stress levels were generally low. Again, there were no bills, no expectations of health . . . about 10,000 years ago or so we figured out how to grow more food than we had people and we quickly procreated to meet the food supply and then we grew more food and quicly procreated to that new food availabiliy. (I loved this analogy from Daniel Quinn's book, Ishmael) The point is our stress systems - particularly the cortisol production and adrenalin production from the adrenals in reponse to a threat (i.e., fight or flight reponse) was supposed to be used so infrequently that we hardly ever used it - maybe if we stepped in the path of a beast higher on the food chain in the pre-NationalRifleAssociation era (The NRA might have upset the food chain balance making us higher ) our adrenals would sap our progesterone to make cortisol for a brief moment and then we would run away, find a nice safe place and sleep it off for a day or so.

Now adays, we have reversed this process - we spend almost every minute of every day in a cortisol driven state with high adrenalin levels and high cortisol levels, and low progesterone levels . . . cortisol is made from cholesterol (chol to pregnenolone to progesterone to cortisol - please forgive the skipped steps) - anyway, we have feedback loops in our body to produce more cholesterol to then make more cortisol . . . (at least it is hypothesized if not perfectly proven yet - I know I see lower cholesterol once I normalize the hormones). There are many other contributers to high cholesterol, but this is one.

OK, the body only knows whether it is about to die or not about to die. There really isn't a middle ground. So in essence, anything but living in the garden of eden for example is considerrred life threatening to your body. Life threatening equals adrenal demand, adrenal demand equals hormonal drain, horomonal drain eventuals depletes hormones (primarily progesterone), which leads to adrenal exhaustion which leads to full blown adrenal fatigue.

So the cure isn't to replace the cortisol that your body has been overproducing in response to "stress", it is to de-stress your existence. The problem is we are convinced that we can't destress because it is impossible to quit your job, leave your spouse, abandon your kids, forget your bills . . . those excuses will kill you.

You need to take the cortef if your doctor rx's it, but read the adrenal fatigue book, work the plan in there, take the supplements to help your adrenal and reclaim your stress. Another book I find particularly helpful is called "Healthy Selfishness" I can't remember the authors, but the point is that you can't be healthy if you spend all your time holding everyone else up at your own expense. You have to get over the guilt of being a little selfish to promote your own healing and health.

OK, I'll stop rambling, but as an MD, I know if I can get my patients to realize exactly how stress is affecting their molecular pathways it is often easier to get real lifestyle changes in the areas of nutrition, medicince compliance, exercise, relaxation, depression, anxiety . . . . etc. I read somewhere and I believe it that 90% of all disease is nutrionally based and I would augment that by saying that 99% of disease is caused by ignoring the amount and level of stress (anything not resembling the garden of eden analogy) and the level of nutritional awareness a person chooses to have and not a deficiency of prescription medication.

I hope this helps, but please get the book and read it. It can be very helpful in guiding you to curing your adrenal fatigue. If your doc uses cortef he or she must be aware of everything I mentioned and you are lucky to have gotten to a place where someone cares enough to step outside of what we were taught in medical school. I practice 90% tradtitional allopathic medicine and 10% in the world of adrenal fatigue and BHRT, but I use the adrenal fatigue knowledge on 100% of my patients.

Have a great day, adddoc
 

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