My Search for a Cortisol-ution: Update 1

Today marks week one of my battle against the cortisol monster. So far, I am not AS constantly hungry, I have successfully avoided sweets (other than chocolate, mainly dark, which has a low glycemic index and a calming effect on me), caffeine (other than the aforementioned chocolate) and junk food. So yay for me. And the longer I go without the crap, the easier it will be. As I mentioned in my previous post, I've never been a junk food kind of gal.

Sure, I like ice cream, cake, cookies or chips every now and then as well as a good burger and fries or pizza. But I usually stick to indulging things like that once every month or every couple of months because I prefer how healthier food tastes and makes me feel. And I had cut out sodas (and all caffeine) completely. Then I was drinking them once a week, then every day. And I couldn't get enough salty and sweet foods. The cravings were insatiable and no healthy substitute was working. I was consuming processed foods like a maniac, and I'm completely anti-processed foods. As a kid my mom would give me a choice between candy and fruit and fruit always won. Sure, I at snack cakes and candy now and then and my mom bought me the occasional Happy Meal. But overall my diet has always been pretty healthy.

Luckily I now realize that I was not on the road to becoming a typical fat American who lives on garbage (I mean... that stuff should literally just go straight to the trash can and never enter people's bodies). I have noticed a clear difference in my cravings, probably because there's this switch in my head that I'm pretty good at controlling. Instead of on/off it says healthy/unhealthy. Now that I've switched it to healthy, I've been craving fruits, vegetables, fish and grains. I've done research on the foods I know will help me (low-glycemic foods mainly) and have read and re-read the literature my doctor gave me. So now my brain knows the foods my body needs right now. For the most part it’s all food I know is healthy anyway. But there are certain foods, like oranges and bananas (too much potassium which will make my already overworked adrenal gland work harder) that I love but need to avoid.

As far as the way I feel, today is better than the past few days but still not excellent. I have been extremely weak and dizzy (though much stronger today) but a lot of that is due to my period (which is a natural process and therefore I chose to include it in this blog about my health). I’ve decided I’m going to go for a short walk outside, with a friend in case I have any problems, because exercise is important. And I have been feeling so lousy that even a little walk or a short yoga session can wear me out, so I try to take advantage of any day that I feel decent. Hopefully tomorrow will be even better and next week I will see a huge difference in my health. For now, I’m just happy to be back on track with healthy eating.

You can have too much of a good thing (a.k.a. I need a cortisol-ution... a.k.a. My adrenal gland is near collapse)

A few weeks ago I had some blood work done. Having been a sickly child (and a sickly teen… and a sickly adult), I’m no stranger to being poked and prodded. I have had my blood work done more than a few times, most notably when I was diagnosed with beta thalessemia minor at age six and with Fibromyalgia at age 15 (the blood test was to rule out all other possible illnesses). But I have never had to fast like I did this time.

Did I mention that the main objective of the blood work was to figure out why I have been experiencing weakness, dizzy spells and fatigue (beyond what I normally experience with FM)? Those symptoms only worsen when I haven’t eaten. So driving to the doctor’s office and having blood drawn wasn’t exactly fun. An empty stomach plus loss of blood equals a weak and grumpy Jesseca. The phlebotomists even asked me if I was all right because I was visibly shaken up (and probably even more pale than usual).

I had to fast (and come in before 9 a.m., by the by… and mornings are bad for FM sufferers) so my cortisol would be at a base level. As I found out on Wednesday, when I went back to go over my results, my base cortisol level was 37.8. According to the paperwork she gave me, the normal level between 7 and 9 a.m. is between 4 and 22. If you don’t know about cortisol (and all I knew was that it made you gain belly weight… which I have), it’s a hormone released by your adrenal gland when you're stressed out. It can be a helpful hormone, giving us energy and motivation to handle a tough situation. But my adrenal gland is clearly releasing too much of the stuff. As my doctor (well, nurse practitioner, but that’s really semantics if you ask me) put it, “Even if I didn’t know you, I’d think you were a really stressed out person.”

And I am. I realized I was, but the test results were a real wakeup call. I was relieved to find out why, for at least the past six months, I have been experiencing: dizziness (especially during my period), weakness, non-stop anxiety, irritability, depression, mood swings, severe PMS, irregular periods (as in more than on per month, even though my birth control should have stopped them altogether), weight gain (mainly in the stomach region where I’ve never carried weight before), insomnia, extreme salt and sugar cravings, hypoglycemia, lack of concentration, memory loss and an inability to handle everyday stress. As I said, I have some of those symptoms because of Fibromyalgia, but they have been much worse than usual. I have been a big, crazy ball of emotions who can’t stand for thirty minutes without feeling like passing out. There was even an incident when I nearly fainted while sitting… in the car… during traffic. In short, I was at my breaking point. I thought it was from stress-induced exhaustion because we were in the middle of moving. And I was right. Now I know the extent of the problems stress has caused.

The relief of knowing what was wrong was accompanied by fear because of how serious this issue is and can become. If I don’t get myself back into shape, my adrenal gland could exhaust its resources. Luckily, we caught the problem before things got too serious. I know what I need to do to make myself better: get more sleep (11 hours a night), change my diet (basically- more protein, more complex carbs, no caffeine or refined sugars, low potassium), exercise more (which has been hard with the weakness but should be easier in a week or so) and relax. The first three are pretty simple. I have suffered from insomnia, but she gave me a prescription for Klonopin, which I think will work. And I have always had pretty good will power when it comes to eating right and exercise (other than recent junk food binges and total lack of energy or motivation, which I now understand). But relaxation is not my forte. I have had to learn and re-learn relaxation techniques from various teachers, doctors, therapists and physical therapists. But I keep going back to my natural state of anxiety and stress.

Hopefully I can whip myself into shape and this will be the beginning of a new, relaxed (and belly-less) Jesseca. There’s also a good chance that getting my cortisol in check will help my FM go into remission. And then I will be able to work, which is actually much less stressful for me than not working.

I go back for a check up in a month and in the meantime I will to my best to post progress updates on this blog.