feel awful

[mandy72]

started HB for my highs and now feel much worse

cant remember feeling like this last time

im taking planetary herbals holy basil extract 450mg 4 times a day

not sure if what im feeling is thyroid or adrenals

[humanbean]

Going from 0 to 4 in one jump is too fast I suspect. Start with one a day for 3 or 4 days. If you tolerate it then add another one 12 hours later. Keep that up for a few days then add another half way between the first two for a few days, and so on.

I don't think you have to worry about timing because your cortisol is high all day. Just spread them out throughout the day as evenly as possible.

[mandy72 in reply to humanbean]

i went on an adrenal page on FB and they suggest to take 1 an hour before each high

i think 450mg is too much for me as last year i started on 400mg and after a few weeks went up to 450

[humanbean in reply to mandy72]

I've read the advice of taking one Holy Basil before each high. And it seems reasonable to me. But I still think taking 4 a day from the word go is too much, and you should introduce gradually, even if you end up on 4 eventually.

The following is just my understanding of the connection between thyroid and adrenal problems, so it is very simplistic and quite probably wrong :

Problems can arise from the thyroid first or adrenals first.

Let's assume your ill health started with a failing thyroid.

When your thyroid starts to fail the body creates more cortisol and adrenaline ( known as epinephrine in the USA) as a substitute for thyroid hormones. If this situation goes on long enough then the raised levels of cortisol and adrenaline become "normal for you".

When you get stressed or anxious your body will increase your levels of cortisol and adrenaline even more.

Cortisol and adrenaline is so bound up with stress and anxiety that I'm not clear on which comes first. Does stress and anxiety raise the level of cortisol and adrenaline or is it the other way round? Or do they both feed off each other? I suspect the latter.

Suppose your thyroid has been under-performing for 20 or 30 years and you've never been treated for it. Your body has adapted to a state of perpetual stress, anxiety and fatigue (because cortisol and adrenaline are NOT good substitutes for thyroid hormones).

Now imagine you start getting treated for your underactive thyroid. In a healthy person with functioning and responsive adrenal glands, raising thyroid hormones would lower cortisol and adrenaline.

But if your adrenal glands have been over-producing cortisol and adrenaline for 20 - 30 years it may be difficult to get the adrenals to slow down.

So, you've got cortisol and adrenaline making you feel wired and you are taking thyroid hormones which raise your metabolism, and the combination of the two is intolerable. Also, high levels of cortisol and adrenaline reduce the body's ability to convert T4 to T3.

I haven't tested my cortisol levels for a couple of years. Last time they were tested my worst result was the first one of the day.

I found when I started taking T3 that I couldn't tolerate any first thing in the morning and I blame my cortisol for that. So I started taking my main dose in the afternoon. I could tolerate it then. When I added more T3 I took it in the evening. Then, without changing my overall dose I shifted a tiny amount of T3 to the morning. And this time I tolerated it.

I kept adding T3 in tiny, tiny amounts. If I couldn't tolerate the extra at one time I tried a different time. If I couldn't find a time I could tolerate it at all then I stopped the extra for a week, then tried again. I kept trying to shift tiny amounts of T3 to different times of the day. My goal was to take a reasonable proportion of my dose first thing in the morning.

In all it took me about 9 months to raise to a dose 1 and 1/2 tablets of T3. If I got tolerance problems cropping up I would stop my T3 altogether for a day.

Having high cortisol is really difficult to deal with, and yet most people don't recognise it as being a big issue. I'm currently still taking too little T3 for my needs, but I simply can't raise it any further without over-medication problems. Despite this my morning temperature is too low, my heart rate is too high, my Free T3 is bottom of the range and my TSH is is over 1, which is high for someone on T3 only.

Anyway, I don't know if any of that helps. I hope it does.

The other thing I have to do is take vitamins and minerals to maintain optimal levels. Low levels of essential minerals and vitamins is another cause of stress for the body. People always think of stress as being psychological in origin, but I think physical stress is a huge contributor to the problems we face.

Gut issues also affect stress levels. Pain is very stressful too. All these things affect how much cortisol is getting pumped out and affect how much thyroid medication people can tolerate.