Adrenaline Surges/ I need some advice please.

Ohh!! Congratulations!! How wonderful!

All that you mention would have contributed to adrenal stress. I just went to see my daughter's new house last weekend and spent the night so that I wasn't traveling for so many hours in one day (6), but I'm still having significant troubles with those darned little buggers!

I think I've asked this before, so forgive me, but have you had your adrenals tested with a 3 or 4 time a day collection of saliva? Are you on any support products for your adrenals?

Don't forget that stress - even happy stress - also lowers our immune function, so it allows the bacteria to get a better foot hold wherever they are in us.

Are you sure that is adrenaline surges? When I was at the Lyme clinic the same thing happen to patients often. It was a glutamate surge or glutatmate storm. It is a bi product of ammonia from dying bacteria. It causes the shakes and the crazy anxiety. Here is an explanation.

www.curezone.org/forums/am.asp?i=1442292

I also got this when I stopped antibiotics. I told my LLMD about it and he said every time that happens with bartonella specifically you didn't kill it all off. I am not sure on lyme as I don't have it.

I have used andrographis and it is very very strong. You may be killing bugs as well.

Imo, when you have adrenalin rushes it is very hard to chill out as they are very difficult to handle even with all our learned techniques to settle down. Deep breathing exercises, journaling and reading posts, if you can handle it, keeps my mind occupied. Benzodiazapines( Xanax, Ativan, Klonopin, etc.) can cause withdrawal effects once stopped with anxiety being the number one worst symptom amongst many other symptoms. People can also go into tolerance withdrawals meaning you need to up your dose in order to feel better. It is usually a good idea to slowly cut your dose until finished. Benzo withdrawals can take months and sometimes years to overcome. I am not saying this is going to happen to you, especially if you have been on them less than two months. There are benzo forums that will provide info for you, if needed.

I do hope the surges, whatever the cause, resolve soon. I am right there with you.

Patty

I'm trying to figure out if what I experience are adrenaline rushes.. or shivers/chills.

Would you be able to describe them?

Hi Queen -
You might have two different triggers. I think the night time adrenaline surges are likely cortisone surges related to adrenals.

You likely still have adrenal problems that might be getting worse, the more you push through the physical stress of treatment:
- stopping the abx can also shift your body into a little frenzy with your immune system all of a sudden overtaxed with fighting the infection on its own before it's ready—creating stress that your adrenals respond to
- even good excitement creates the same adrenal responses and can contribute to adrenaline surges
- and illness is stressful, treatment is stressful—taxing us physiologically and psychologically

The daytime surges can still be related to cortisol surges but it might also be something you're taking and I also like the suggestion of a glutamate storm.

The adrenal issues are so very difficult to solve and can take years to fully correct adrenal function—after many years of taxing my adrenals it took me 2-3 years to get things calmed down and to rebalance everything and it was also a lot of work.

The best test for adrenals is a 24-hr saliva test:
- you spit into a small vial ever 5 hrs, and you collect the 2nd urine of the day.
- The hormones are measured across these times and a normal adrenal function will produce cortisol in a parabolic shape across these times—or in other words, low production in the AM right when you get up, a max level at noon and then fall in a curve over the course of the remainder of the day—ending at a level lower than where you started in the AM.

Some adrenal tests only measure one level and that literally tells you nothing without context (why they waste our time and $ like that is frustrating). You need your other levels to help you know whether your levels are rising and falling like they should be. If the pattern is off, it's common for the cortisol to be too high at bedtime which can cause your heart to race and you to feel like you are in the middle of exercising, your brain can't settle down, you're a little agitated, maybe sweating a little.

They can also surge in the middle of the night - sometimes the surges wake me out of a dead sleep in a panic and like I need to get up and do the laundry, run around the block. Before I cut sugar out of my diet, I'd have wake-me-up surges nearly every night.

Drugs like Ativan are likely exacerbating the adrenal issue. It took me a long—too long—time to wrap my head around the fact that there is no drug, no magic herb, no simple process to healing the adrenals other then preventing the circumstances that impact them in the first place (stress on the body) and allowing the body to heal them. Think of it as trying to refill the reservoir in a drought. You gotta do everything you can to capture that rare rain.

For you, you have to allow your body to physiologically and psychologically de-stress. Drugs that force the sleep or wake cycle (Ativan) will fight your body's natural processes and they can be addictive.

For me, it meant stopping work (I had a very stressful job with long days), getting rid of my smart phone, avoiding excitement (movies, books), taking frequent naps, meditation, and I tried every natural sleep remedy in the book… I blacked out my bedroom windows, got rid of the alarm, etc… And 2 yrs later I'm finally sleeping through the night.

Hope this is helpful - if not, keep asking questions!

-p

No - it didn't sound like your experiences were adrenaline rushes Girlie… do you feel extreme temp changes that cause the shivers or are they just shaking?

-p

Anyone wishing to read a site with good information on adrenal fatigue I would suggest this one - it's been incredibly helpful to me: /www.drlam.com/ I do not support his business, but he does put out good information.

I was having adrenal surged as well at one time but my adrenals were not fatigued. I'm still not sure what was causing them, however when I started taking cat's claw, biocidin, and silver they went away and I began sleeping again. So I know for a FACT that my surges were related to these infections/bacteria. Now I stopped these items for about 5 days because I started adding in other things and guess what....my sleeping was becoming disturbed again. I'm back on them.

Lila - Sorry you're experiencing that....do you have a LLMD or LLND you can talk to about it?

Have you had your cortisol tested? You can do a 4 point saliva cortisol test. (you give a sample 4 X throughout the day/evening.