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Has anyone gained weight from too LOW cortisol?

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Posted 12/22/2018 8:42 PM (GMT 0)
I can't find anything online about this, only that it causes blood sugar issues but I can't put that together with weight gain. My naturopath gave me a cortisol supplement that seems to lower cortisol in spite of me having normal cortisol at night, to help me sleep. I've been eating very little in the past few days to offset weight I've gained, but still have gained almost 2lbs in two days (not a fluctuation). I thought this was related to an iodine supplement (and it might be that too) but I stopped taking that and the problem persists.
Posted 12/22/2018 10:01 PM (GMT 0)
Interesting - low cortisol (Addison's disease) generally causes weight loss.

The opposite (Cushing's) - high cortisol generally causes weight gain.

But those are extremes.

When my cortisol was high - I lost weight...so it didn't match the above. Maybe it takes many months to years for that to happen.
Posted 12/23/2018 1:25 AM (GMT 0)
test your hormone levels
test for brucellosis
fiber intake
Posted 12/23/2018 1:54 AM (GMT 0)

jb1994 said...
My naturopath gave me a cortisol supplement that seems to lower cortisol in spite of me having normal cortisol at night, to help me sleep.


Low cortisol made me not sleep. if you're having trouble sleeping, lowering cortisol seems like a bad idea.

If you're taking drugs like prednisone or dexamethasone, this will lower natural cortisol production and show on a blood test as low cortisol, but as these drugs act like cortisol, the effect of this is that of having high cortisol rather than low cortisol.
Posted 12/23/2018 6:29 AM (GMT 0)
Thanks RainyCloud, I wrote those down. Looks like there is a bit of info on the web about them helping sleep as well. I definitely don't want prescription cortisol knowing steroids' effects on Lyme. My last LLMD was about to put me on it and I was adamantly against.

Girlie, yeah I don't get it either. High can make some people lose weight too I guess due to stress. I've gone from high to low and the whole time had weight problems.

Oregon, I've had my hormone levels saliva tested, and I have low cortisol during the day and normal at night. I can't tolerate fiber. Not sure about brucellosis.

Quin yes I have a feeling it was keeping me awake too. I wonder how that works. I don't know why she prescribed it. I'm kind of thinking this naturopath doesn't know what she's doing and only treating symptoms...I hate to give up on her so quickly but this is a bad start.
Posted 12/23/2018 4:20 PM (GMT 0)

jb1994 said...
Quin yes I have a feeling it was keeping me awake too. I wonder how that works.


It's a negative feedback mechanism. Low cortisol leads to low blood pressure and low blood sugar, which stimulates more cortisol and more adrenaline, which raises blood pressure and blood sugar. It's the adrenaline that keeps you awake.
Posted 12/26/2018 6:12 AM (GMT 0)
Ah okay I figured it was something to do with adrenaline but couldn't remember the whole series of events.
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