Hi luthien -
Sayyadina's post is full of great info. You might need to spend a little time if you can to read up on adrenals and really wrap your head around how they function and how much they interact w/ the other two organs in the HPA axis (hypothalamus, pituitary & adrenals), your thyroid, your neurotransmitters and your gut. Unfortunately, all of these systems need to function optimally so once one goes, you usually get challenged in another area so knowledge is key.
Here is a good reference - also, do a search on this site for more info.
www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/adrenal-info/Unfortunately, there is no quick fix. In order to rebuild your "reserves" your body has to be allowed to rebuild. Nothing can short cut it - this takes time. And the most successful and sure-fire way to allow your body to rebuild is to S-L-O-W D-O-W-N and rest. Once your body is allowed to physically rest, the mental rest will hopefully come. If you have trouble with mentally shutting down, give yourself help by avoiding excitement, stress, worry--this is very difficult unless you shut yourself off from the world. To be honest, that was the ONLY way I could recover - shutting myself off from the world for awhile.
Depending on how depleted your adrenals are, this may mean stopping all physical activity for a long while, too. Sounds like you need a complete break, kind of like you're doing. If you continue to push beyond your means, your adrenals will never have a chance to recover and the end stage of adrenal exhaustion is death. The body simply cannot function w/out them.
So, resting is key and that's fairly simple. No activity or physical exertion. But other kinds of stress also tax the adrenals--psychological and physiological. If you are struggling w/ lyme & co and are in treatment, that's one massive physiological stressor. Just having challenged adrenals is a massive stressor.
But also, we all know how much psychological stress can drain us. You have to manage all 3 and the best approach is to check out. Avoid the stressors--avoid the situations, the people, and the triggers for the stress. There's no magic pill or combination of herbs that will allow you to overcome this stress AND continue functioning beyond your means. The only way to rebuild your reserves is to de-stress.
Once you allow your body to do that (and it is NOT easy, take it from someone who struggled for 2 yrs to de-stress), and with the help of some adrenal support that Sayyadina reviewed, you can rebuild.
The tricky part is knowing how much you can do while you're rebuilding. At first, you just have to stop everything. At some point, you can be more normal in spurts, like Sayyadina explained. I blow it all the time--doing more than I should and end up with setbacks. And the setbacks no longer impact only the adrenals--the setback shows up in all the other associated systems. So a setback with adrenals is really more like an all-out crash. it's dangerous.
I probably sound alarmist but adrenals are not at all understood by western medicine and people just aren't getting help from MDs. Once you allow your adrenals to tank, it is very easy for everything else in the machine to follow. And the road back is very difficult, particularly for us lymees...
Hope this helps! We have a lot of experienced adrenal sufferers here so don't hesitate to ask questions.
-p