“Why Am I Always So Sick?”
One of the most confusing aspects of trying to figure out how to heal is fully understanding why we’re so sick in the first place. Adrenal Fatigue symptoms appear everywhere, especially in dysfunctions of our digestive, reproductive, and immune systems. Adrenal Fatigue also causes extreme fatigue, chronic pain, sleep, and thyroid disorders.
Without this understanding, we can spend years searching for a diagnosis. We continue treating individual symptoms, and all the while, our health continues to decline. This leads to complete exhaustion and a feeling of despair and hopelessness.
Healing Adrenal Fatigue at its root can rid us of symptoms once and for all.
Healing Is Simpler When We Understand Our Physiology
When we’ve been living under chronic stress for extended periods, we risk shifting into stress physiology and getting stuck there. Stress physiology, or “Adrenal Fatigue,” is akin to a car becoming out of alignment.
The car will start to shake and make loud noises. The tires become unevenly worn, more gas (energy) will be spent, and the vehicle will not drive optimally. Focusing on correcting the noise, changing the tires, and running countless tests would be a mistake. Fixing the alignment will resolve all “symptoms” without addressing each separately.
Adrenal Fatigue Patients Are Out of Alignment
The body has been broken down into parts in our current medical model. It can be appealing to believe in the efficacy of having one specialist to address each different organ or system in our body. The problem with this approach is if we were to go to a tire specialist, we would often end up with new tires when we needed a complete alignment.
In Adrenal Fatigue patients, “new tires” could look like many things. Specialists and “experts” could recommend detoxes, parasite cleanses, or candida medication. They may treat Epstein Barr Virus, asthma, allergies, digestive complaints, or thyroid disorders without first addressing the root cause. Sometimes it even looks like blaming bad genetics and accepting your genetic fate.
Treating Adrenal Fatigue Symptoms Brings Only Short-Term Relief
Treating symptoms can often bring short-term relief for the symptom being treated. But it can become an endless pursuit of trying to keep symptoms at bay. It often feels like the arcade game “whack a mole.”
Treating the underlying condition will address all of the Adrenal Fatigue symptoms. It will also keep additional symptoms from popping up as side effects of meds.
The hint that a more profound underlying condition needs to be addressed is that there isn’t just one symptom – there are many. Adrenal Fatigue affects our whole body.
One of the Most Common Adrenal Fatigue Symptoms: Weakened Immunity
When our bodies are under stress, it registers as an attack. That happens whether it be a minor stressor like being stuck in traffic or a significant stressor like moving. We are unable to distinguish between these small and large insults. We only know we need to respond; we’re meant to rest and recover.
Without this time to recover from stressors, our bodies become thrown out of balance over time. Our stress response system becomes dysfunctional and gets stuck in the “on” position.
Each stressor signals the adrenals to release another “fight or flight” hormone boost. These hormones flood our entire body. They tend to zero in on our immune system, causing increased antibody production or inflammation. A continuous stress load ultimately drains the adrenal glands, leaving them unable to handle the shifting immune hormones.
The endless stream of stress responses can trigger predictable debilitating immune-related symptoms. These include allergies, food sensitivities, leaky gut syndrome, inflammation, chronic pain, and autoimmune diseases. Our organs are also purposefully suppressed so we can expend our energy focusing on the immediate perceived threats.
Alignment vs. Adrenal Fatigue
We can naturally keep viruses, candida, allergies, and other threats at bay when aligned. Our anxiety isn’t triggered, we can handle stress, and we’re not easily overwhelmed. Our organs aren’t suppressed, and our body can work in perfect symphony. This way, it maintains the thriving ecosystem it is designed to be. We rarely get sick, and life feels more manageable.
Physiologically, the central nervous system shuts down digestion when we’re facing a stressful situation. It does this by slowing contractions of the digestive muscles and decreasing digestion secretions. All the body’s resources have been rerouted to answer the “fight or flight” call.
Once the so-called fire has been extinguished, the body reverts to its regular “rest and digest” response. However, research has shown that frequent episodes of stress-induced digestive suppression set up the perfect environment for problems. Food sensitivities, parasites, gut dysbiosis, and allergies develop. These symptoms are indicative of Adrenal Fatigue.
Adrenal Fatigue’s suppression of other organs can look like many things. Infertility, thyroid disorders, hormonal imbalances, immune system dysfunction, and autoimmune disorders appear. This is because the body can no longer appropriately maintain these functions while in survival mode. The body’s resources become targeted at surviving the current perceived threat.
While everything else is being purposefully shut down, our senses become heightened. That can feel like increased pain, sensitivity, panic, and perpetual anxiety.
Healing Adrenal Fatigue Forever
Understanding why we’re constantly getting sick is the key to healing Adrenal Fatigue symptoms. Our body is stuck in stress physiology, wreaking havoc on our bodily systems. We’re often taught that we’re sick due to a symptom when Adrenal Fatigue causes the symptom.
To heal Adrenal Fatigue, we need to support the body in shifting out of stress physiology. We also need to calm the trigger-happy stress response system. This sounds incredibly simple, but the second key to healing is addressing the body. This is where many patients get stuck and revert to trying to treat symptoms individually. This mistake can lead to years or even decades of chasing after symptoms without any healing progress.
The Entire Stress Response System Needs To Be Treated
Our medical care has become so specialized. I have found that doctors often treat the hormones, nervous, or limbic systems. All three of these systems need to be addressed simultaneously to heal fully. My Trilateral Approach to healing supports all three sides of the stress response system. That means my patients can have a full recovery.
Symptoms manifest differently in patients depending on their stage of Adrenal Fatigue. The simple testing I recommend for my patients helps me develop an individualized treatment plan. The plan depends on my patient’s specific changing needs as their bodies go through the healing process. Healing from a chronic illness doesn’t have to be complicated; it must be intentional. The body will return to alignment and fully heal when given the proper support and sufficient time.
