“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 show up 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 of time, we risk shifting into stress physiology and getting stuck there. Stress physiology or what we call “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 car will not drive optimally. Clearly it would be a mistake to focus on correcting the noise, changing the tires, and running countless tests. Fixing the alignment will fix all of the “symptoms” without having to address each one separately.
Adrenal Fatigue Patients Are Out of Alignment
In our current medical model, the body has been broken down into parts. 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 what we were really needing was a full 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 decide to 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 Only Brings Short-Term Relief
Treating symptoms can often bring short term relief for the symptom being treated. But it can turn into 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 there is a deeper underlying condition that needs to be addressed is that there isn’t just one symptom – there are many. Adrenal Fatigue affects our whole entire 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 small stressor like being stuck in traffic or a large stressor like moving. We are unable to distinguish between these small and large insults. We only know we need to respond and then we’re meant to rest and recover.
Without this time to recover in between stressors, our bodies start to become thrown out of balance over time. Our stress response system starts to dysfunction and gets stuck in the “on” position.
Each stressor signals the adrenals to release yet another boost of “fight or flight” hormones. These hormones flood our entire body. They tend to zero in on our immune system, though, 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 even autoimmune diseases. Our organs are also purposefully suppressed so we can expend our energy focusing on the immediate perceived threats.
Alignment Vs. Adrenal Fatigue
When we’re in alignment, we can keep viruses, candida, allergies, and any other threats at bay naturally. Our anxiety isn’t triggered, we’re able to handle stress, and we’re not easily overwhelmed. Our organs aren’t suppressed and our body is able to work in perfect symphony. This way, it maintains the thriving ecosystem it is designed to be. Very simply, we rarely get sick and life feels easier.
Physiologically, when we’re facing a stressful situation, the central nervous system shuts down digestion. It does this by both 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 put out, the body reverts to its more normal “rest and digest” response. However, research has shown that frequent episodes of stress-induced digestive suppression sets 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 show up. This is because the body can no longer properly maintain these functions while in survival mode. All of 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 a perpetual state of anxiety.
Healing Adrenal Fatigue Forever
The key to healing Adrenal Fatigue symptoms is having an understanding how why we’re constantly getting sick. Our body is simply stuck in stress physiology and wreaking havoc on our bodily systems. We’re often taught that we’re sick due to a symptom when the symptom is in fact caused by Adrenal Fatigue..
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 so incredibly simple, but the second key to healing is addressing the body as a whole. 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, the nervous system, or the limbic system. In order to fully heal, all three of these systems need to be addressed simultaneously. 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 what stage of Adrenal Fatigue they are in. The simple testing that I recommend for my patients helps me to 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 difficult, it needs to be intentional. When given the right support and sufficient time, the body will go back into alignment and fully heal.
