Thank God for good doctors (and good mothers who find them)!

My Mom continues to be one of the greatest forces for good in my life, and this has certainly proved true in the health arena. As I mentioned below, she helped me locate Mary Shomon's doctor in McLean, VA, which isn't toooo far from Columbia. One has to navigate the infamous Washington beltway to get there, but even with the beltway traffic it was worth it to find a good doctor who speaks my language and whom I can trust to restore my energy level and...well-being!

Dr. Adrienne Clamp at Well Being - Being Well has been wonderful. My first appointment was 2 hours long, and much of that was spent with her, explaining my health history in a variety of areas and getting her feedback.

I retook the saliva test, and went to Labcorps to have blood drawn for an array of indicators, including iron, B vitamins, vitamin D, cortisol, thyroid antibodies, etc. As it turns out, my thyroid supplement needs a little tweaking because my T4 is low, and I was low in vitamin D, iron, and selenium. I do have Hashimoto's or thyroid antibodies, meaning my immune system is producing cells that could attack my thyroid, as I understand it. However, my number is relatively low and Dr. Clamp didn't seem worried. Furthermore, it seems that everyone who is hypothyroid has thyroid antibodies. One of my friends has brought her numbers down through a gluten-free diet, but I pray to God I don't have to do that! (I tried it for a week and it's hard!)

Also, my saliva test revealed that my adrenal glands are no longer depressed...they're stressed. [Wry smile] My cortisol levels are slightly elevated, but at least this means my adrenals are back to normal and functioning properly, just overly so. Why am I so stressed I ask myself? Dr. Clamp and I agreed that I'm a busy mom and that's why. "Well I do get uptight about every little thing that happens," I said to my husband that night at dinner. He laughed at this self-revelation.

Dr. Clamp put me on 5,000 IU/day of vitamin D, more selenium, an adaptogen (herbs that help your body deal with stress) mix, and iron with "liver fractions" for absorbability. She also tweaked my thyroid prescription to receive only T3 in compounded form and T4 in synthetic form, I believe. And I only take it once in the morning vs. twice a day, which is so much nicer. Gone is the 3:00 pm alarm on my phone! I was most sluggish in the morning, and the T4 I was formerly taking was slow release, which you really don't need anyway since T4 stays in your system for days. Now I get a T4 "shot in the arm" first thing in the morning and that should help. I just started on it today, so we'll see how the next few weeks go.

I think I'm starting to feel better after four days on the supplements, but time will tell. You can be sure I'll keep you posted!

Some new doc recs

My Mom has had mysterious, painful, debilitating symptoms that resemble allergies for over 30 years off and on, and might finally have found a doctor who understands, her fourteenth doctor to visit I believe. He thinks my dear persevering Mother's symptoms, based on her round of lab tests, are due primarily to thyroid and adrenal causes. Amazing. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, does it? (Ten points if you can tell me what 80s chickster movie that line comes from. Would adding "Marilla" to the end of it help?)

How did my Mom find this excellent doctor, you ask. Through Mary Shomon who wrote a book she found extremely helpful, Living Well with Hypothyroidism, which you should be able to get at your local library. Mary keeps a running tally of extremely good thyroid- and possibly adrenally-minded doctors listed by state.

As soon as I have weaned my daughter, I hope to visit Mary's own doctor who practices in the McLean, VA, area and see where on the charts my adrenals and thyroid are, and what I can do about it if they're still low. Thank God for these doctors!

The most important meal of the day

Somewhere in the last nine months I think I've made a discovery. Before our little bambino arrived (would that be bambina since she is a girl?), I would sleep in the morning until my body woke me up, which was always at least 10:00 AM or later. I hated missing so much of the day and not really getting my game on til noon, but I knew I needed the sleep and having no job besides wifing, I could, especially since my wonderful hubs encouraged me to get the rest I needed.

I would have a substantial breakfast of eggs, toast, hot tea, and usually also yogurt/banana/flaxseed meal while pregnant. But I would still hit a slump about an hour after breakfast, even after all that sleep, and it was so frustrating. However, for the last nine months I've been getting up between 7 and 8:00, eating breakfast (same as above minus the yogurt), and going back to bed during the baby's first nap. Granted, I might be in bed during my after-breakfast slump, but I seem to be more energetic overall and wonder if my blood sugar got too low sleeping in so long and the extra sleep backfired.

Just a thought for any others out there with the luxury of sleeping in or blood sugar issues that might require a little bit of night-time noshing perhaps. I always hated getting up to find something to eat in the night when pregnant and an empty stomach prevented sleep, because you get so woken up and you have to brush your teeth afterward (which requires turning on a bright light) and what you ate might give you too much energy when trying to fall back to sleep. But...if it gives you more energy overall, it might be worth it.

Energy for a challenging year

I have not forgotten your comment, dear "ayarella," at the end of the last blog about how I am doing now. In fact, it has haunted me for months. It seems mommy-brain is getting the best of me these days (how handy to transition from fatigue-fog to mommy-brain as an excuse for anything), and even when I have two seconds to sit at my laptop, the tyranny of the urgent email is all my mind has room for.

I just reread my last post, now almost a year ago (oh dear), and found it encouraging to look back and remember. I had no idea what the coming months would bring. Let me just say that this year has been fraught with physical limitation and weakness (along with the immeasurable joy of the cutest and sweetest baby imaginable!), and I'm pleased to say my mostly-recovered adrenals and God's grace has seen me through so far.

I did in fact have enough energy for 18 hours of labor that started at 1:00 AM and a natural birth...at the hospital down the street...in the biggest snowstorm in Maryland history: the birthing center was too far away and, incidentally, closed. I had enough energy for the newborn night wakings which lasted a little too long since 2:00 AM somehow meant party time to our little stinker. But thankfully she started sleeping through the night at 7 weeks after we got her on a schedule. I had enough energy to endure four months plus of postpartum healing complications that I won't go into here.

At six months our little darling hit a growth spurt that had her waking up at night again, sometimes several times, for the next two months, and I somehow had the energy for that, though I blame getting strep throat in July on my being thus run down. But I was able to recover in less than 3 days without antibiotics, which I attribute to my many natural "remedies." After sleeping through the night for another month and a half, she hit teething/sickness/teething again, which become a weeks-long family sickness saga. I think I am finally over that virus, maybe. Perhaps my adrenals are reaching their limit.

Breastfeeding takes alot out of you, I'm realizing, though what an honor to pour your life into another so literally, and such a darling other at that. But I have had an over-abundance of milk all these months actually, and plan to keep nursing her until she is a year old.

In addition to often-interrupted nighttime sleep, every day I have gone right back to bed during our daughter's first nap. Most of the time I am able to sleep, and this is probably what has gotten me through. It's a little more challenging now that she's down to two naps and her first nap is two hours after waking in the morning, as opposed to an hour and 15 minutes (ie, it's harder to go right back to sleep). But I'm hoping that as she starts sleeping through the night again and thus I do, I won't need that morning nap. If I can go to bed early. Which I'm flagrantly violating at this moment. Uh, good-night!

Addy and pregnancy

Friends ask from time to time how my health is doing and where I am in my recovery. Others of you may wonder, especially if you have adrenal fatigue and are considering getting pregnant, how recovering-fatigue and pregnancy mix.

I have to admit I thought I would see more significant progress in my energy level during our first year of marriage, since I was not working, was sleeping in, was out of the city with its pollution and fast pace, and was living a peaceful low-stress life. As I have said, Ageless Xtra had significantly accelerated my progress in the fall of 2008, but time hadn't like I'd thought, since I still needed about 10 hours of sleep a night to function well and not get sick.

Just before we got pregnant in May, I was starting to get up around 9:00 instead of 10:00 AM. This seemed like definite progress, and I think it was. Then at about six weeks pregs, I got slammed with nausea and fatigue. Morning-noon-and-night sickness was a special kind of torture and was pretty debilitating, although I never actually threw up. The fatigue would land me back in bed many days after having breakfast (which was after sleeping in til 10:00), and around 2:00 I had enough energy to get some stuff done. Then around 5:00 I would get tired again and sometimes napped.

However, the acclaimed Second Trimester was a whole new story, as my previously-preggy friends promised. Around 12 weeks the nausea and fatigue started to diminish and disappear completely over a couple of weeks. I didn't have the "superhuman energy" that many women get during the second trimester ("more energy than you've ever had in your life!" said one friend), which I confess I was looking forward to, though not banking on. Nevertheless, I had way more energy than in the first trimester and felt "normal" or "new normal," i.e. how I felt before getting pregnant, which is significant because I wasn't taking all the supplements I had been then, simply my prenatal vitamin. I started taking Juice Plus again (I had been off it for about a year) as my only other supplement, and have seen studies and anecdotal evidence of exceptionally healthy babies born to "JP+ moms" and greatly decreased chance of pre-eclampsia after prenatal use.

I am now 32 weeks and pretty far into the third trimester. I do get tired more easily, but nothing dramatic. Brisk walking (and in the now 30- and 40-degree weather, it is brisk) energizes me and banishes much of the fatigue. But I'm also trying to listen to my body, not overdo it, and lie down when necessary. I have also been able to splurge on sweets during my pregnancy without it affecting me too drastically. I was eating so healthy for the two years previous, that even though I'm eating very healthy now, I'm splurging more so I feel like I'm really indulging, which is of course one of the privileges of pregnancy.

So that's where I am now, and according to our midwives and sonograms, both Peanut and I are quite healthy and on track. I'm curious what my energy level will be during labor and what kind of adrenaline reserves I have. From what I've learned so far, much of labor is staying relaxed and letting your body do the work, though stamina is obviously key, and the most energy is needed at the end to push. My doula suggested an energy drink, and I have one of my own I can try (Univera's Essentials), and we are using a birthing center where they let you eat and drink as needed for this "athletic event."

Something I am finding helpful lately is asking God for the strength and energy for this day, every day (or when I remember). A friend challenged me to do this (thanks Wendy!), and though it seems so obvious, I think it's a new thing for me since the days almost three years ago when I was very weak. The Bible is clear that any strength we have comes from the Lord anyway, and I do want to look to Him primarily for this basic need, over vitamins, diet, advice, doctors, or the elusive magic bullet. If every breath is from Him, how much more the energy to accomplish the things He's given me to do today and be the person He's called me to be. And amazingly enough, when I ask, He answers!

(...Like how I just read this verse the morning after I wrote the above!) "When I pray, You answer me; You encourage me by giving me the strength I need." Psalm 138:3 NLT

New life, and brand new life

So I haven't written in a while (before the last post) and I have a very good excuse: pregnancy. God gave us the gift of conception a month before we had even planned to start trying. This is significant in many ways, but especially from a health angle, as a demonstration of God's healing power.

At the beginning of June, I took my third saliva test in three years to gauge where my adrenal glands were in their recovery. When I got the results back, they showed my adrenals in worse shape than last year, and almost back to where they were when most depleted two years ago! I tried not to panic and stay at peace for the 24 hours before my phone consultation with Dr. Taylor in Atlanta. I assumed it might have something to do with my pregnancy, which we had discovered just after I'd taken the test, but I wasn't sure.

When I finally got to speak to him the next day and we were going over my results, I mentioned that I was pregnant and had been when I took the test. He was so relieved and said, "I didn't know how I was going to break it to you that your hormone levels are post-menopausal!" (uh, or pregnant). We had a good laugh of mutual relief, and he went on to say that my test results were basically awash since I'd been pregnant at the time and pregnancy is the biggest stress you can put on your body.

However, he said that ironically the biggest proof that my adrenals had rebounded and were in good shape was that we had gotten pregnant at all, and so fast. He said if my adrenals were still too weak to handle pregnancy, they would have stopped my body from getting pregnant. So the very thing that skewed the test was the true test.

What proof of God's lovingkindness and redemption that He would give not only new life to me, but a new little life to me and Steve to incarnate His grace!

In a nutshell (er, a big one)

I was talking to a friend recently who suspects she has adrenal fatigue, and in writing her an email outlining the steps I took to get well, I realized I should probably reiterate it on my blog for anyone else looking for similar advice. Here's my attempt at being concise.

1. Figure out if you could have adrenal fatigue, through perusing the website www.adrenalfatigue.org and/or reading Dr. Wilson’s book Adrenal Fatigue: The 21st Century Stress Syndrome. This is the book that helped me the most. It lays out symptoms of adrenal fatigue, why your doctor can’t seem to help you, and exactly what to do, eat, drink, etc. to get well.

2. If most of the symptoms Dr. Wilson talks about match up with yours and everything he says resonates, the next step, as he suggests, is to take a saliva test. This is the best way to measure your cortisol levels throughout the day (my blood tests were completely normal; but my saliva test showed my cortisol levels to be way under the normal range). I recommend my doctor in Atlanta, Dr. Eldred Taylor, who specializes in women’s hormonal issues and wrote the book Are Your Hormones Making You Sick? His office will send you the saliva test in the mail, you take it over the course of a day, send it in to the lab, and three weeks later Dr. Taylor can fax you the results and do a phone consultation (if you don’t live in Atlanta as I didn’t) to interpret the results. His office number is 678.443.4000.

3. No matter whom you go to for your diagnosis, you will end up having to be your own doctor for the most part. By eating healthy, cutting out all sweets/caffeine/alcohol from my diet, exercising to exhilaration but not exhaustion, making lifestyle changes like working part-time and moving out of the city, figuring out that I had low thyroid as well and taking thyroid supplement, and taking excellent nutritional supplements religiously, I have rebuilt my adrenals and feel more “normal” than I have in years. As long as I get plenty of sleep (I still need 10 hours per night), I feel basically normal during the day. This is a LONG way from where I was two and a half years ago. But I had to make my health first priority, be willing to make big changes, spend lots of money on supplements and good food, and be “weak” before my friends.

4. For diet changes, I refer you to Dr. Wilson’s book, which is very thorough. Basically, your diet should be “real” food: whole grains like whole wheat bread and brown rice, unprocessed meat, unprocessed everything!, veggies, fruit later in the day (when I could handle the fruit sugar better because my cortisol was higher), dairy products but milk in moderation because the lactose (milk sugar) would make my head cloudy. For example, for lunch almost every work day I treated myself to salmon and brown rice from my favorite restaurant. For dinner I might make a stir-fry dish on brown rice, with dessert as plain yogurt, toasted almonds, and strawberries. If you’re like me, you can tell immediately when you’ve put something in your mouth that drains rather than supports your energy. Listening to your body is the best way to help it.

5. For supplements, I took a lot of different things at different times (Reliv, JuicePlus, green food, licorice tea at least once a day, vitamins, dessicated liver, whey protein, etc) and it all helped. But to maximize your time and money, here’s what I recommend: I would take Dr. Wilson’s “adrenal rebuilder” and “adrenal C” for longterm repair, Univera’s Ageless Xtra for short-term and longterm energy and repair (use my associate number 1344420 when you order or I'm happy to order it for you), and Univera’s (or somebody’s absorbent) multivitamin for general health.

6. Keep educating yourself on your adrenals, thyroid, hormones, and general health. There are all kinds of good books out there, including the books listed here on my blog, The Metabolic Plan: Stay Younger Longer by Stephen Cherniske, and Jordan Rubin’s “Maker’s Diet” books. This is going to be a long journey back to optimal health: if it took years to get sick, it will probably take years to get better. And once there you're gonna want to take better care of your body than you did before. Hang in there. God has some pretty amazing surprises for you on this journey, if your story is anything like mine!

7. Take the saliva test again six months or a year later and measure the strength of your adrenals. If you are not feeling significantly better, you may have another deficiency like low thyroid that is contributing to the problem. I stumbled on a book about six months after my adrenal fatigue diagnosis that said to treat all your issues simultaneously in order to get better. So that’s when I realized I had low thyroid symptoms, Dr. Taylor confirmed my suspicions based on my previous saliva test, and I started taking natural thyroid supplement from a compounding pharmacy, which as far as I know has greatly contributed to my recovery and overall energy.

That was my attempted nutshell. Hope it's helpful!