Hi,
The description of wired but tired definitely fits my symptoms......but the question is, which comes first?
......Do low levels of T3/T4 cause some people to produce more cortisol so they feel like they are running on adrenaline on an empty tank.....
....or does high cortisol caused by stress (or other causes), suppress thyroid production?
Would be interested in anyone's experiences/thoughts!
For years I was undermedicated so low FT4 and very low FT3. What kept me going was adrenalin. What my body lacked in hormones it compensated for with adrenalin. I was able to function and lead a busy life but I was on citalopram as well as levo to keep the anxiety at bay. It was not a great way to live.
I think it can be both
It's well recognised that thyroid problems can flare up after high stress.
But anyone who's hypothyroid and either not on treatment or on inadequate dose .....often end up living on adrenaline.....anxiety and inability to switch off and get good rest and poor sleep often the result
Fred1e, it's a bit of a vicious cycle, as of course being low on thyroid hormone puts the body under a lot of stress, and production and use of thyroid hormone works best when everything else in the body is balanced and doing well.
This is the reason why often the path to getting well is a difficult one - once we've been ill for a long time, everything is out of whack and we may have other deficiencies, imbalances, etc that will never all get back to where they were in wellness.
Overall, though, I think for those of us who are hypothyroid, that is being caused by an underlying disease state. For the vast majority of people it will be Hashimoto's, while some of us have pituitary problems or have had cancer, etc. While cortisol problems are largely a symptom.
Its possible to have an underlying adrenal illness, but that will often be caused by something substantial in itself, such as a tumour or a separate autoimmune condition. This doesn't seem to be particularly associated with thyroid illness, though a few people will have both.
In my personal researching to treat my own adrenal fatigue, I concluded that in a way adrenal fatigue is just a result of long term illness. I think almost everyone with a chronic illness will have stressed adrenals to some extent.
The semi-good news with that is that all the things we can do to take care of ourselves and reduce stress on the body adds up and can give a bit of relief. This means looking into and correcting vitamin deficiencies, improving diet, going gluten free and eliminating other food intolerances if necessary, resting well, meditating, etc, etc.
I second all of the above because I can also speak from personal experience. Being low thyroid can cause your adrenaline levels to shoot up to compensate for the lack of circulating thyroid hormones to power your cells and nervous system. You can be “too tired” to fall asleep and have insomnia. I could never sleep at night no matter how tired I was and it was frustrating. I felt fatigued all the time but couldn’t relax or calm down. Oddly the adrenaline surges felt like a burning sensation in my eye sockets...
I’ve ordered yet another private test - cortisol & DHEA. Hopefully I’ll get some help from this forum to understand the results 👍🏻
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