Pain, Pain, Go Away!

Not only that, but t he stuff in aerosol cans can explode . 

I've got it back, I'm feelin' better every day. Tell all those pencil pushers, better get outta my way. I'm doing well enough that I've worked out the past couple of days and started going for walks at lunch again--once when it was 14F (-10C). I'm cooling off at night now. It's good to put on my winter pajamas and pull up the covers. Adrenal cortex and hydrocortisone FTW! Here's what I've learned from my reading and experience: Minerals=>Adrenals=>Thyroid In other words: Sort out your minerals first: iron, magnesium, potassium and iodine. Salt your food to taste. If you think you have adrenal problems--being tired or wired at the wrong time of day, heart palpitations, frequent colds, sex hormone problems--take a 24-hour cortisol test. Sort out your adrenals--I use Seeking Health adrenal cortex; others use stuff with adrenaline in it, or "adaptogen herbs." The former gave me palpitations; I haven't tried the latter. I

Changing my adrenal medication has done me some good. I'm now taking one that's just adrenal cortex. That's what the last one was supposed to be, but I'm sure it had adrenaline in it. I've been a lot less jittery and the heart pounding has all but stopped. It was so distracting when I was trying to sleep! I can't quit wholesale--I start catching cold every time I try. Even in the few days after I quit the one and waited for the other to arrive, I got cold and tired. So Saturday I had groceries delivered because I didn't feel like leaving the house. I filled up my online cart with about 20 items, then tried to change my address from work to home. I couldn't. The site said my home and work were in different regions. So I emptied the cart, changed the address, and started again. I got a pop-up message saying I'd changed my address--did I want to change it? I clicked yes, I wanted to change it. When I was ready to check out, there was my work address

Taking more adrenal and natural desiccated thyroid was a bad idea. I had an instinct Friday morning that I didn't want to take NDT, but I ignored it. All day and part of Saturday, I was jittery and my heart was pounding. I finally decided to follow my instincts, informed by reading and experience. I didn't take any NDT Saturday and didn't take any NDT or adrenal hormones today. I'm feeling better. I also quit doubling up on iron, since I've started feeling hot at night. There are times when it's better to have a specific plan, but this might not be one of them.

Saturday, I quit taking NDT (natural desiccated thyroid) for a while, figuring my problems (pounding heart, feeling hot, lack of energy) were from taking too much. The problems went away, so I was right. Yesterday, I felt great: normal heartbeat, energetic, cheerful...then I went outside after work and felt too cold. My heart started pounding again. I woke up later that night and felt puffiness behind my eyes. This morning I was up a pound and my face was so puffy it looked like Elvis circa 1976. My stomach was rumbling after lunch and sending acid the wrong way. Not wanting to repeat the misery I went through from taking too much NDT, I waited until this afternoon, thought about making absolutely sure my iron and adrenals were straightened out this time, and finally said, screw it, if I don't like taking NDT, I'll stop. So I took 150 mg--and felt better.  My face doesn't look like I need to lay off the peanut butter, bacon and banana sandwiches. What I'm doing now

Figuring out my endo problems has been hard. Palpitations can be caused by too much or too little potassium, magnesium, iron, adrenaline and T3 (thyroid hormone). Having experimented with the first three, I think I still have too much T3 in my system. That, and I felt a lot better a week ago after taking a break from taking it, then cutting my dose in half. Back when my adrenals were low, eating more carbohydrate made me feel better. It doesn't now. Another sign that the problem is too much T3. Lab tests last week showed almost everything was normal: iron, magnesium, potassium, hemoglobin, and various kidney functions. My fasting glucose was high, though (106); I'm hoping it's because I was in some distress. I'm also hoping that getting my iron straightened out will help downstream functions of adrenals and thyroid. I went about things backwards: first (says Nora Gedgaudas), it's iron, which affects adrenals, which affects thyroid. There's more to it than

Reducing my NDT was a success: the aches and pains are gone and I can sleep at night again. However, my heart started pounding after meals, then between meals, and then I had to lie down after meals or any exertion like bringing a basket of laundry upstairs from the dryer. Google is a lot less helpful than it used to be for finding answers. No matter how I phrase search terms, I get answers involving high cortisol, which I don't have. And the top answers are from corporate pill pushers and official sounding agencies that are adrenal fatigue deniers. I finally found some answers from Nora Gedgaudas's book Rethinking Fatigue , which I heard about over at Jimmy Moore . The second suggestion in the chapter about low cortisol is to check your iron. It's a big deal in adrenal fatigue and thyroid problems. She also says that doing keto is going to be really hard with low cortisol (but to try anyway) and to dig deeper for the source of your adrenal problems. I respect what