Adrenal fatigue

Adrenal fatigue is a sketchy diagnosis at best. Unless you've been on steroids for a long time and have recently come off them, I doubt you have adrenal fatigue. If you do have steroid withdrawal syndrome, you can either go back on a low dose of Prednisone and taper even more slowly or just push through it (it will eventually pass).

If you haven't been on steroids recently, then I would look for other causes. Do you have Crohn's? Although not very specific to Crohn's, those symptoms certainly could be part of a Crohn's flare-up.

PS: Just checked your post history. You seem to suffer very badly with anxiety. I appreciate it's probably the last thing you want to hear, but anxiety really can cause all the symptoms you described: in fact it can be an extremely intense physical experience.

So yeah, I think your physical issues are far more likely to be psychological in origin than physical. There's no shame in that; or, perhaps more accurately, there should be no shame in that. But there is still stigma attached to mental illness unfortunately. In that sense, it's rational to look for a more 'respectable' cause of your symptoms, i.e. a physical one. I do the same myself, I think it's hard not to. But no amount of searching for a root physical cause will make one appear if it's not there. Somewhere along the way you lost your confidence; finding out why you lost your confidence to cope with life won't miraculously get rid of your anxiety, but it might enable you to start tackling it.

Well, it could be anxiety-related, or it could be Crohn's related. Are you on any meds (for Crohn's or anxiety)? Many can cause fatigue. I've been having issues with my BP for the past couple years (especially recently) with it dropping when I stand up so I have to immediately sit down or grab something--or else I fall over. It's often in the 95-100/55-60 range when I'm at the doctor's office.

When I brought this up with my PCP, she said it could just be chronic fatigue (I'm been tired for the last five years). I also have pretty low Vitamin D (which isn't often tested by docs for some reason).

I know that for my anxiety issues, a low dose of Zoloft has helped a lot with my generalized anxiety (and probably my health anxiety as well).

The steroid cream could be relevant! Although topical steroids are considerably less likely than systemic steroids to cause adrenal suppression, they can still do so, particularly if you are on a potent steroid cream and having been using it for a long time.

Seems like this is worth bringing up with your doctor. I just hope he (or she) has a clue. Mention adrenal insufficiency rather than adrenal fatigue: the latter is a made-up term by alternative practitioners but isn't recognised by the medical community.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrenal_fatigue
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrenal_insufficiency

I should add that you probably don't have adrenal insufficiency, but given your long history of using a steroid cream it seems like it's worth checking out.

Doctors are useless unless they can find physical causes for your symptoms. If nothing abnormal shows up on the tests, then there's nothing they can do: they can't treat something that doesn't exist. To be fair to the docs, they're not trained psychologists: they can't make your anxiety go away.

If you think there's no chance of adrenal suppression (and I agree it's a long shot), then I honestly think you should be treating this as a pychological problem. Yes, there's a one in a million chance you have an undiagnosed fatal disease - I'd be lying if I said otherwise - but, statistically speaking, you have a much higher chance of dying in a car accident than you do of any disease.

I must admit, I find health anxiety hard to understand, never having suffered it from myself. I suffer from generalised anxiety and I also get symptoms such as light-headedness, dizziness, fatigue, chills and nausea from time to time, but I don't chalk it down to having a fatal disease. I don't really understand the fear..... what is it you are so frightened of? Dying? :-/

Well, I sorta think you've answered it in your last line <_<.

Stress obviously brings out a lot of physical symptoms for you. That's so common as to be practically ubiquitous. The guts, in particular, are sensitive to stress, which is why so many folks have IBS. The breathing changes, too; hence the lightheadness, shortness of breath, etc.

I get these symptoms sometimes myself, particularly as I do get very anxious about certain things. I rarely have full-out panic attacks, but I do get very agitated and jittery. And, physically, I do feel it.

So try not to worry too much. At least about being ill. >_>

Have you had your iron checked? Weakness and shortness of breath go along with that. I suffer from severe adrenal suppression (on prednisone for crohn's 34 years) and my symptoms are lightheaded, weak, lethargic, no appetite and feel like I have a bad flu and can barely get my head off the pillow. You could ask for an ACTH test for confirmation.

All the best,
Julia