Lyme, adrenalin rushes--Cortisol low/high?

I'm glad to hear that you are going to talk this over with your doctor. With the test results in hand, you can make a lot more sense of what happened.

From what I've learned/experienced, as the adrenals are going down in function, they will start to swing from high to low out put, so it could just be explained by that alone, or it could be that raising your meds (depending on exactly what meds they are) could have increased the stress on your body enough to have your adrenals surge momentarily.

We have to be very careful with stress on the body when we have low adrenals, as every little thing, from moving through treatments too quickly, not detoxing enough, to emotional/mental stress all affects our adrenals.

One of the most informative and 'good information' sites on adrenals that I have found has been /www.drlam.com/ He doesn't know much about treating adrenals when someone has Lyme (doesn't understand the issues associated with Lyme), but for adrenal information, it's a good site.

Getting your hormones balanced back out should help you feel more stable. I showed zero estrogen, and it's a little early in life for that for me, but I won't take replacement estrogen since we didn't find out until I was already at zero. I do use progesterone though and it helps.

I hope that you find out what all is going awry and can get them all balanced back out fairly quick.

krimpet - how would you describe your adrenaline rushes? Are they shivers in your body?

I've been trying to figure out if these shivers I have are from that...or are they shivers/chills from infection - particularly Babesia.
Mine seem to have gotten worse lately since I upped the Cryptolepis.

I just got my results back - saliva cortisol, dhea, estro, progesterone, testosterone.
My cortisol levels are good in the a.m., noon, but a wee bit high at 4:00 and 11:00 p.m.

My estro is almost 0, progesterone is very low, dhea is low.

On my lab report...it did mention that sometimes adding progesterone (don't do the pharma one -get the compounded cream - which is 'bioidentical' -so they call it) = anyway - it can help the estrogen...and basically support the other hormones.

I'm going to try progesterone only...not estro.

I did try the progesterone awhile back...and i didn't notice anything....but that was then...this is now.

I don't really consider myself too young for menopause...but it's interesting that it all hit me right when lyme symptoms started. (I hadn't measured my estro, progesterone prior to lyme - but no symptoms so it wasn't on my radar) I was 50 at the time...and prior to that...only thing that indicated menopause...was the year prior, i had missed a couple of periods....but no other issues...no hot flashes...no mood issues, no bloating...etc.

So, I find it strange...that BAM, lyme hits and now I've got all these horrible meno issues...I think lyme could be partly responsible for it...but I don't know.

I will do a new thread later - and post my results for the members to help decipher.

I also have my LLND appt. in about 45 minutes...so will see what he says.

Please let me know what you figure out...with yours.

Often low cortisol results in a "wired but tired" feeling. You are exhausted, but too tired to do much more than pace (if the adrenals are too far depleted anyway). That is what happened to me, but I was going from doctor to doctor trying to find someone that would actually listen and get my adrenals tested. A year later, when I was deep into adrenal failure at that point, I finally found someone that would listen to me and she got me started healing, but then she kept me sick for a year! All of last year, rather than trying a higher dose of meds like I was asking, she was blaming it on my diet and refusing to even try a higher dose of meds for my adrenals or my thyroid. I finally fired her and since I've been on over the counter homeopathic meds, I've started healing again.

With the no estrogen thing, I was using a progesterone cream - but I just found out it uses soy, and I'm quite allergic to soy. Since stopping that, I've had less gastro and skin issues. But I need to find another one now.

I'm not going to do estrogen replacement (personal decision!) because estrogen replacement can have a lot of issues - and the body does stop producing it, so it's natural. The other hormones being so low aren't good though, so I'm on DHEA, need to get back on progesterone and I'm on adrenal and thyroid meds as well.

I was buying it premade, over the counter. I don't have a doc to write any scripts. I just haven't have enough time to search out an alternative yet.

I know that I would get the shakes pretty violently due to my adrenals - but there's a big difference between the shivers and the shakes - and with the lack of other, sometimes more obvious symptoms like fatigue or the 'tired and wired' feelings, I would agree most likely not your adrenals.

For me, if I go into town, nothing else really gets done, other than dinner. We DO have to eat! LOL!

After any night away from home, it hits me usually the next day (I'm usually wound up from the trip) and lasts for up to 3 days, and I'm exhausted - completely. I have trouble just functioning around the house, plus my other symptoms are increased as well. But my adrenal fatigue was pretty bad, of course I'm healing now, so things are getting better, but you've also had your cortisol tested and you said that you weren't that high, so I wouldn't be too concerned about it.