Glucose levels and body stress / adrenals are related and part of healing

Dont hear much at all about glucose levels here. I've brought this up in the past, but there's newbies here, so here it is again..........How many know your blood sugar levels or test it more than once a year?

A body under stress (lyme is stress) can create adrenal fatigue. High Glucose levels (fasting glucose levels and high A1c test levels) can be related / observed in individuals with poor adrenal health.

The "adrenal guru Dr's" like Dr Lam ect have touted this relation for years. Yet Endocrinologist dont recognize this relation. LOL!!!!!!!!!!!

Obviously, this is not THE only reason for high glucose, just one this is overlooked.

Note: adrenal fatigue is the adrenals inability to work correctly under stress, resulting in high and low output, often at the wrong times of day and possibly the instant over production during sudden acute stress. It does not mean just low cortisol output, that's Cushings disease.

When your body is all messed up, not just from illness/stress but in the eradication phase too, your adrenals are off, to what degree depends on individual condition.

There are many people who dont "fit" conventional medicines "Diabetic patient mold" for lack of a better term. So Drs slap on the diabetic label anyway and say you need to eat less and exercise, paying no attention to stress (they dont believe in adrenal fatigue anyway). Some people already ate healthy and exercised- this confuses Drs, since they should have healthy glucose levels, but dont.

***I have personally experienced this. (knock on wood since its hard to keep adrenals healthy unless your 100% healthy and have zero stress).

I got more exercise than needed in the past and appeared to be very fit, as a child, young man and into my late 30's - many out door and competitive endurance sports and the gym. A little less in my early 40's, then all time low in late 40's.

My glucose kept going up in my early 40's, despite my exercising and healthier than average diet. This was also with untreated Lyme and symptoms of adrenal fatigue. I started to treat adrenals before lyme, and glucose levels slightly improved - now lower sugar. No more 120's.

Now recent times, during 1- 1/2 years of ABX (with breaks), slightly high glucose continued, but LOWERED more in the end , however, this was with LESS exercise. Yes, less exercise. I was hurting to much to exercise like I used to.

After ABX use, I continued to support adrenals and exercised even less since I was concentrating on tendon repair, not yet rebuilding muscles (physical therapy stuff). Note: You have to fix tendons before repairing muscles. And glucose levels , fasting, and average, improved - a lot. Fasting went down to 80's - this is with minimal exercise and even a few beers now and then.

Endo Dr had a look of disbelief.

So this is almost year two, post ABX. Again less exercise the whole year till November, still fixing tendons and glucose is still daily fasting and average (A1c test), in the 80's (great!).

I have just recently reached another healing milestone, this time closer to healing some important tendons. It seems like my body can finally accept more exercise after plateauing 1 1-2 years ago and then re-injuring a hamstring tendon the past summer (I jumped the gun on a long time old injury).

I'm little leery and have to go slow with the exercising. I've increased in the gym substantially the last month- but real world (weekly skiing) is not the same as the gym. If I can do this, increasing "real world exercise", I will still monitor glucose, as it should go even a little lower....high 70's...maybe.

Its now an experiment LOL. I still take holy basil for adrenals every day..... if I remember (less over reaction to stress now, still there a little though). I still dont eat like a saint, just better than average, which isnt much.

Moral of my story is my high glucose was more related to adrenal stress than exercise and diet. I am not a person who gains unwanted weight anyway, but still, improved glucose with LESS exercise goes against common medicine believe. "They" (conventional Drs) don't get the adrenal-glucose connection.

AM

Post Edited (astroman) : 12/18/2016 12:01:13 PM (GMT-7)

I bought a affordable meter a few years ago with easy to find and affordable strips. It was always close to same day fasting glucose testing in the Drs visit, so its accurate enough.

Walmart has two A1c send in kits for under $30 - good deal. They were also in line with the Drs A1c test- but he wont do that quarterly.

I sense my endo takes this as an insult to his knowledge of the endo profession - he had minimal words, again, on my improved results..

All this "new age" medicine he hears from me puts a blank look on his face!!! Its all the OPPOSITE he's trained in. I should give him the book my NP wrote. But since he Rx's my natural thyroid, dont want to piss him off either. Few Endo Dr's will Rx that.

I hope he's silently learning.

Drs with egos.......all too common, and they keep us ill. Did these types never have curiosity besides the schooling they memorized for final exams.?

Read this with very great interest. It seems my Internist was determined to label me 'pre-diabetic' because my a1c came back a few scattered times at around 105.

This was during a period of my large flaring of Lyme symptoms, and I can only date it in the last 2 1/2 years because I wasn't referred to this doc until after my shoulder reconstruction.

At any rate it had to have been the first Winter after because I'd been indulging in 'Christmas Crack', which is a sugar dense confection.

Scared, I abstained and tried to live like a diabetic. The a1c came dutifully down. But then some months later it happened again, and again it was about 105-4. There really wasn't anything I could change, plus I'd read this 'pre-diabetic stuff was nonsense, either you were or you weren't. So I didn't worry about it. Next test and the next were fine.


I get the connection to adrenals, but I also am vaguely familiar with the connection between liver/pancreas and Lyme and also pancreas and insulin.

The other thing that I can't help but wonder about connections is my maternal grandmother.

I've mentioned before that she lived for some time right in a humid, heavily wooded property in Ohio. At some point (I was pre-teen) they moved to an apartment and they said she had MS. She supposedly developed type 2 diabetes and I think alzheimer D. At that point she was being shuffled around different nursing homes and ended up having both her legs amputated because of gangrene.

Truly a horror story that could very well have been a Lyme story all along.

k07 - obviously it could be liver/pancreas/insulin issues from lyme.

But........ if your adrenals are a mess on the 24 hour saliva test and you have AF symptoms , at least you can experiment with adrenal support and possibly (probably) watch your blood sugar get healthy again.

I was in 120's fasting more than a few times. Mid 80's fasting this AM and whole fall. Finger crossed its stays or gets even better.

Good post Astroman! I've been dealing moreso with the low glucose when my adrenals went hazardy. I am getting it back together slowly.

I will have to see what 80 converts to with our numbers (in Canada)

any double digits are bad for us.

Yes, the mg/dl scale used in US.

For simplicity, triple digit glucose #'s for those in the US are bad.

So although I can't feel the good effects of healthy glucose (80's) vs when it was in the 120's, at least knowing I'm not diabetic is a relief in itself.

I do feel less stressed (better adrenal health) and still have a lot more room for improvement.

So this last glucose test was still good despite taking almost no adrenal support herbs lately, and to top it off, my gut was not that great the last month while trying to fight off all the holiday food offerings.

Gut is better now, but that fact that it can roller coaster says somethings not in balance gut-wise.

I would really like to know what optimal health feels like. This is impossible to get there in modern times with stress, time constraints and food. Eating great takes time and money. There is only so much time in a day when you work full time. If you use all that time in food prep, no time for other things then so = stress. Balance is hard to do.

Well, now they say, 100-125 is pre-diabetic, over 125 is diabetic. The danger is getting stuck in a pattern of yearly glucose going up.

Just the fact that there are people with this who DON'T fit the "diabetic mold" of a bad diet and extra weight tells you conventional medicine does not have a good understanding of this.

They use the A1C several month average to monitor too. I was 5.9-6.1 A1c for a while. Healthy is below 5.7. Think I was now 5.5 last month.

www.webmd.com/diabetes/guide/glycated-hemoglobin-test-hba1c

Thanks for the great post, AM! (sorry I'm late in reading it but I was thrilled to catch it ;)

The internist I see for thyroid care and as a GP actually checks my glucose monthly when she checks my thyroid. I'm never fasting, have often eaten lunch and 80 is common for me. There will be a time here or there (closer to lunch) when it might come back at like 101.

My hubby is like Girlie's hubby to this extent: his fasting glucose consistently comes back at 109 year after year.

109 used to be considered OK - now it's not lol

Hubby's GP ran the A1C a few times - it was slightly over 6 once but most often in mid-5's.

My hubby is active outside - not every day, though. I can't get him to consider cardio - not even a quick walk with me. We have compromised with him stopping his munching at 9PM (I sometimes have to remind him not to cheat lol). He goes to bed at midnight and I'm still trying to get him to consider being done with dinner and subsequent munching by 8:30 (faggetabout 8 in his eyes lol)

So glycogen is made and stoted in the liver ...yes my hypo episodes were wonky after bactrim episode ..then treatment and lots of spirulina seemed to help ..i think i killed part of my liver that bugs were infesting .(bart)..and then there is pancreatic involment ..i know i meeded enzyme help but insulin is made there ..for the holidag i cheated with maple syrup ....whoa ..i cojld not handle it was a rush ..im awaiting blood work so we will see if a1c is down with treatment ...thanks astro

Krimp- what can lower your glucose too much? lyme in general? Pancreas taking a lyme hit,,?

I guess in my case, I would say lyme indirectly elevated my glucose via poor adrenal health. Ive pretty much proven adrenal health has a glucose aftermath in my chemistry, as a noted possibility by adrenal guru Drs.

Blue- "cheated with maple syrup". You lost me with that one. ...hu? Sugar energy rush? I've never experienced that, a co-worker talked about sugar rushes all the time. I have no idea what thats like.

Great posts since I was last here!! I've learned a few new things - yay and thanks ;)

I didn't know bananas contained B6 (only the potassium and prebiotic angle).

Learning what AM had to share about bananas tells me my daily 1/2 banana is doing more for me than I realized ;)

My recently-made New Year's Resolution is to research vitamins/nutrients in food. I want to see how my diet stacks up.

bluelyme's posst as well as Krimpet's usually teach me stuff I'll be happy to know ;)

Thanks so much you guys