Episode #24: Mystery Symptoms? Could be Adrenal Fatigue

Weakness? Lack of Energy? Joint Pain? Appetite issues?

You may be experiencing symptoms related to HPA axis insuffiency or "adrenal fatigue."

On today's podcast, Frank discusses:

• The Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal (HPA) axis
• Proper Structure/Function of the HPA axis
• Fight or Flight Response
• How to Start Recovering from Adrenal Insufficency

Show notes below!

Frank: (00:00)
Have you been experienced in symptoms that you just can't wait? You put your finger on things that just don't make any sense. Like you know, you just have this weird sense of weakness or headaches or dizziness or depression or just feeling apathetic. Well, you might be suffering from something called adrenal fatigue. So stay tuned to this podcast where we're going to talk about adrenal fatigue and we're going to talk about what you can actually do about it because this plagues a lot more people than you can actually imagine. Hey everyone, and welcome to unconventional on this radio powerful and inspiring podcast set to revolutionize and disrupt healthcare. It's time to put you in the driver's seat and be the force of change necessary for the lifestyle you've always wanted. 

Frank: (00:51)
Hey, what's going on everybody? It's frank and I'm here with unconventional wellness. And until on this week's episode we are going to talk about adrenal fatigue, but we, before we started that, I'm going to talk about what is the HPA axis in order to be able to help us understand the concept of adrenal fatigue. We Pr, we probably should do a really good Monica Washup, if you will, of what the HPA access actually is. Because this, this is what directly affects adrenal fatigue. It's super important that when it comes to considerations of how do we help ourselves get out of these funks that we're in and get ourselves out of these chronic illnesses and on the road to recovery, it's very important that we understand the structure and function of the human body because we need to know how to best support that structure in that function. 

Frank: (01:47)
So we can make sure that we don't have these symptoms further on down the road because once we finally overcome them, that's when we have true empowerment. So let's start off by talking about the HPA axis. Okay. First of all, HPA is an acronym. Like most things in medicine are in the HPA stands for the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis. The reason why it's an access is because everything is in line, right? So the pituitary gland, excuse me, let me take a step back. So the hypothalamus is in the base of the brain. The pituitary is very closely related to it. And then the adrenal cortex is all the way down on your kidneys in sort of like your middle back. Okay. But what that particularly does is what we really want to be able to dive into, it is a very amazing system. It's a nervous endocrine system or you'll hear like some folks will say it's like a neuroendocrine, um, junction. 

Frank: (02:52)
So it's a dynamic system and it's really, really cool because you don't normally often see the nervous system being sort of like so intimately intertwined with the endocrine function of these different organs that we're going to talk about. So it's really just a designed in our genetics that we have this HPA access because there is a psychological component to it that creates physical manifestations. So what do I mean by that? Well, it's really what we call the stress response. And so if we receive, and so the human body perceives a stress. Um, this was one of those like typical like fight or flight scenarios, right? Let's just say that like, you know, you're walking in and all of a sudden somebody, um, where to drop something and you need to react to it or whatever, right? I'm going to just give you this very basic example. 

Frank: (03:49)
While your eyes are gonna be receiving information, your ears possibly you're going to be receiving information, you know, you're going to feel the vibrations, something like that. So some things in a trigger, your nervous system. Okay. And what happens is that that nervous system response happens in order to either put us in a fight or flight response. And so like, you know whether you're going to stand up to that bear that you find in the woods, um, and try to scare it back would be your, what would be your fight response. Then you actually have the same pack of lions, if you will, that you need to run away from. So that's going to be your flight response. And so most of the time we're going to respond in one of those two fashions. Well, excuse me, that the actual change in the body is going to be about the same every single time. 

Frank: (04:44)
Okay. And so what that is is that is a response that is because of stress. And so the hypothalamus, the very first piece in the HPA axis is going to release a hormone. This hormone is known as the corticotropin releasing factor or see r f Crf, um, just because of its extremely close proximity to the pituitary gland. There essentially in the same area of the brain, it automatically causes the pituitary to release something called the adrenal corticotropin hormone or ac h. So Act h then goes into the bloodstream and seeks out one particular receptor that is inside of the adrenal glands that sit on top of the kidneys and that is where a c t h is going to bind, okay? Then subsequently what happens is that continuing on the cascade, those adrenal glands are going to Redo, are going to release Cortisol, okay? So cortisol is our stress response hormone. 

Frank: (05:53)
That is what can cause a bunch of different things inside of the body, okay? And it will actually stay in your body for a very long time. Matter of fact, cortisol levels will usually have their highest amounts there in the morning in response to getting us to wake up. They're part of the, the entire wakeful cycle. Okay. And so once enough cortisol is there, um, there is a spot in the, uh, you know, a body if you will, up in the brain that will sense the amount of cortisol that's inside of the brain and then subsequently tell the hypothalamus, the pituitary gland and then the adrenal glands to stop releasing cortisol. Cortisol, excuse me, in order to be able to like say like, okay, there's enough and their stress is gone and we can start going back to normal. Okay. So the problem is, is that we live in a world, so that's how the system works and that's, it's actually pretty straight forward. 

Frank: (06:51)
Okay. The problem is though, is that I think, I don't have to say this, that we live in a world that we have a huge amount of constant stress. It doesn't take us very long to find a new source of stress, whether it be, you know, um, us at our regular jobs, uh, dealing with regular work related stress or God forbid we pick up our phone and take a look at our phone and randomly pop onto Facebook and see something that stresses us out. There is quite a bit of different things that can immediately caused stress in our lives and we get bombarded with it all the time throughout the day. And so a lot of people are responding constantly because of their HPA access. There are constantly bombarding their system with lots and lots of cortisol and even amounts of cortisol can relate to even more fight in fight or flight types of hormones, uh, you know, such as epinephrine or even nor epinephrin. 

Frank: (07:57)
Um, it actually can continue to keep us in this fight or flight response and it actually will not shut off because of all of the stress that we go through. So we should really just be very grateful that the HPA access is there. The thing is though is that with this chronic activation of the HPA access, it's leading to what folks are now starting to understand is this a issue with adrenal fatigue? So really what is adrenal fatigue then if we can transition into that? Well it is these like, you know, chronic response of these unpredictable, uncontrollable things that causes the cortisol to be released as we just discussed. But it is when we are in a situation, when we are being constantly under this stress that we are going to end up having a hyper activity of the HPA access and then it actually may cause inappropriate situations. 

Frank: (09:06)
And so, um, you know, just by this constant demand of cortisol on the body, it is going to cause problems with gastrointestinal systems. It's going to cause problems with cardiovascular systems, immune systems, you know, in various other things. And so that's when I was saying earlier, all of these different symptoms that you are having a really could be because of adrenal fatigue. And so like, you know, if you have this excessive tiredness, lack of energy, and you know, you could be a person who even over sleeps, like you're getting 10 plus hours of sleep a day, but yet you're still tired. These are these general malaise symptoms then that could categorize do you have adrenal fatigue or not? Some of the other symptoms that we talk or that we can talk about is so, so like weakness, joint discomfort, dizziness on standing, you know, constant increased heart rates, palpitations, uh, with this feeling of your heart fluttering inside your chest, that can happen. 

Frank: (10:09)
Um, you're wanting to eat too much and wanting the eat too little. You might have a dominal pain. You might ever heard. Ability, sleep disturbances, confusion, of course, anxiety and then even sleeplessness. Okay. So folks that have this, this issue of this stimulation of the HPA access over time might've been be diagnosed with something called chronic fatigue syndrome. Okay. So, uh, there is this myriad of different symptoms that we will get that caused different conditions, but it's just because everything is being related to a very stress related environment in which we find ourselves even fibro Myalgia. Matter of fact, uh, is a disease that is now being treated, uh, with more medications that actually work as antianxiety medications because we do know that the physiology of the reason why fibromyalgia does in fact occur is because of individuals who report high levels of stress. Whenever I saw somebody as a physician assistant, uh, in my clinic and I would see them for something like chronic back pain or chronic knee pain or something like that, or they would have this like really just this sense of discomfort all over their body, I would start asking questions that were not only related to the physical symptoms that they were having, but I want to start getting into some of the mental symptoms as well. 

Frank: (11:35)
And so I would ask like, you know, things about sleep, you know, are you fatigued all the time? Excuse me, are you depressed? I'll start asking a lot of mental health concerns. And of course these were coming up as yes, those in fact we're being reported as being true. So, um, it is extremely related to mental conditions is this constant firing of our HPA access. Okay. There's some different things that can cause adrenal fatigue. You know, if you've had a history of depression, if you have a history of OCD or obsessive compulsive disorder, like we spoke about Fibromyalgia, um, folks that have post traumatic stress disorder, and please don't let PTSD be something that has only affiliated with those that are in the military. You know, I'm a, I'm a person who has post traumatic stress, but honestly, you know, anybody who, who was there to witness something that happened such as horrific as nine 11, you can't tell me that those folks don't have post traumatic stress. 

Frank: (12:34)
You know, you could have witnessed a really horrific car accident and you would be dealing with the same thing. So post traumatic stress can happen to anybody. Okay. Um, also premenstrual tension syndrome, uh, postpartum pyramids, postpartum periods, excuse me, like the baby blues and things like that can actually cause a chronic firing of the HPA access even as asthma or Eczema. Okay. So if you actually are seeing yourself in a situation where you are always stressed, you might actually be wondering why do I feel like as well as, because you might have yourself in a situation where you have this chronic firing of the HPA axis and that's what's causing a lot of your symptoms. Okay. And so what ends up happening is that think about it like, you know, we constantly do something that is overworking a system. Well that system eventually is going to become dysfunctional. 

Frank: (13:29)
And what happens is that then we start finding ourselves in a situation where it might actually be more difficult to actually get yourself back into this state of homeostasis. And so it's going to require a very long period of really working at things step by step in order to be able to really get yourself back to where you want to be. And so there are natural and integrative approaches that totally can help. I absolutely love talking about the holistic lifestyle. I talk about it constantly in unconventional wellness. And so it's very important that you look at all facets of your lifestyle in order to be able to combat age or adrenal fatigue, right? You don't want to just focus on sleep, you know, like that is our natural thing. That's our first common thread is that we want to just say I'm tired, so therefore I just might need more sleep. 

Frank: (14:22)
Well, it's not the case if you're actually having issues with your diet. Okay? Or if you're having issues with exercise, surprisingly enough, you know, you might be, uh, you know, exercising too much or you might be exercising too little, but finding that happy balance of exercise will help restore, um, really good restful sleep. Okay. And then even supplements. So we need to look at your entire lifestyle. There might be some toxins that are also happening inside of your life that actually might be those PR, those regular hormones that should be being produced inside of your body. And so it's very important to have a very organized approach. Looking at things like your diet, your nutrition, looking at things like your movement and your exercise. Um, helping yourself get better sleep, reducing your stress, looking at stress management techniques, ways to distress, things like that. And then also are there some underlying players that you're just unaware of that could be causing some of these issues related to toxins that are also inside of your environment. 

Frank: (15:25)
And so that's what we want to talk about today. That's adrenal fatigue. Um, you know, I just want you to know that I'm here for you. If you have questions about adrenal fatigue, please by all means, email me at frank at Ritz essentials. So Frank at Rit, C R I, T, Z e s s e n t, I l s.com, and I will be very happy to answer specific questions for you that you might have a wondering if actually this, uh, podcast has spoken to you. If like maybe everything is good for you, it would be very benevolent of us to share this podcast with others because we may have a friend who has had a very stressful situation or has had a very stressful set of situations happen to them and so you may not necessarily be experiencing any of the symptoms of you know, adrenal fatigue, but you might have a friend or you might have a family member that does. 

Frank: (16:27)
So I would urge you to please send this podcast to them. You can do so by just clicking. If you are looking at this through iTunes, you can actually click on the underneath the picture. There is a way to actually send the podcast to a friend by use of their email address and a, of course, as always, I love when I receive comments and reviews and ratings by you guys because that is the way that these podcasts are increased in their reach is by looking at ratings and reviews. And so if you guys give me a five star rating and write a quick comment, then this wall allow others that might be suffering from adrenal fatigue to actually see this podcast because you know, that is how you can get the free marketing if you will, of being able to help others with uh, you know, with, with adrenal fatigue. 

Frank: (17:27)
What's pretty interesting is I just remembered a statistic about adrenal fatigue that, you know, the whole hopefully help urge us to, to pass this along with others is that even more so than 75% of folks that have been going to primary care recently are actually stress related incidences. Uh, because that's what they've actually been going for. So it's very simple to say that conventional means are very difficult to try to manage a lot of these issues because we are dealing with dynamic individuals who are dealing with dynamic human beings, if you will, is why we are really looking at needing to help others is because this is a lifestyle situation, not something that we are looking at in terms of, you know, something that conventional medicine can easily be able to work at. So HPA access dysregulation is absolutely a thing. You know, it can be fatigue, it can be stress, it can be exhaustion, but it is extremely important to know that there is help for us out there. 

Frank: (18:41)
And so we need to be able to provide that help sell please. Uh, like I said, give us a subscribe, give us a share, uh, make sure that you give us a five star rating. The reason why is because I want to make sure that all of this information, all of this education, all of this content for unconventional wellness can reach the masses because, uh, your lifestyle should be something that you can deliberately put a choice into. And so, um, let me know what your suggestions are for this channel. I want to make sure that we are speaking about things that are absolutely going to be extraordinarily helpful for you. And so please let me know as well. Send me an email, frank at Ritz essential [inaudible] dot com and I cannot wait to see what this channel has in store for all of my podcast subscribers. And I cannot wait to bring you the health care that you deserve in the year 2019 and beyond. With unconventional on those where we focus on a nutrition, we focus on exercise, we focus on, uh, removing toxins, getting better sleep, and reducing your stress because these are critical to a healthy lifestyle. So take care. I'm frank. This is unconventional wellness and we will talk to you again next week.