My Journey on How Adrenal Fatigue Can Develop

Here’s How Adrenal Fatigue Can Develop. I am sharing my own personal experience with Adrenal Fatigue, not just as a healthcare provider. There are many health conditions that cannot truly be understood until you experience them, and adrenal fatigue is one of those. So, I say God blessed me with Adrenal Fatigue so that I could help others.

Stress was the underlying cause

Stress, whether it be emotional, physical or nutritional is truly at the root of all chronic disease. Regarding adrenal issues, you will hear different labels including adrenal insufficiency, a medical diagnosis, or adrenal fatigue or even burnout. Whatever you call it, it is stress and it impacts the body and mind.

In 2013, a client came to me sharing that she had been diagnosed with adrenal fatigue.  I had worked with clients that had various health challenges, but this was a new one. She was already eating clean and working with an Integrative MD, so this was going to be a challenge. The only unique factor was that her stress level was extremely high, as she was experiencing extreme burnout in her career.

To be honest, her symptoms were puzzling.  I kept trying to figure out exactly what it was she was feeling and why, but I just couldn’t connect. Usually clean eating, resting and supporting the digestive process was the answer but, in this case, it wasn’t enough and I left it to “I can’t help everyone.”

Approximately one year later, I started to experience signs of extreme fatigue and emotional sensitivity. I remember the thought of performing simple household chores like changing the linens on our bed was equivalent to running a 5K. Some days I couldn’t even perform these simple tasks. When and if I did, I had to lie down and rest even with 7-9 hours of sleep.

Testing for Adrenal Stress

Ironically, at about that same time I decided to add saliva hormone and neurotransmitter testing to my menu of services, and the first thing I do with a new service is put myself through the test. My results revealed that I was in Phase 3 Adrenal Fatigue. I was devastated and scared. It was at that point I started reading and researching everything I could find on the condition. I learned that Adrenal Fatigue is categorized as Phase 1 (Alarm), 2 (Resistance) Phase 3 (Exhaustion).

I connected to a private Facebook group for those with Adrenal Fatigue. I did learn quite a bit from the group, but the negativity was so overwhelming that I decided to stop following. Most of the group seemed to be strong Type A, perfectionists, overachievers and/or controllers, which makes sense why many end up here! I embodied many of these traits which contributed to my outcome.

The adrenal fatigue research scared me. Stats, such as, it takes up to five years to recover or some cases lead to adrenal cancer as well as Addison’s disease. Addison’s is where the adrenals have been damaged and one symptom is a golden bronze skin pigment. Now I understood why people were asking me if I had been to Florida recently or why my skin was so bronze in the middle of winter, in the Midwest! All of the pieces were coming together. It was a wake-up call for me.

What is Adrenal Fatigue

Unfortunately, it is not recognized by conventional medical community. It is not a proven medical condition but a “syndrome” where fatigue and other symptoms are caused by a poorly working adrenal gland in people who are under chronic mental, emotional, or physical stress.  They do recognize “adrenal insufficiency” which states that only drugs/steroids can be used to treat it and that supplements could be harmful. So, I asked myself, are my adrenals in need of more toxins to “treat” it or should I use whole clean food and pure sources of supplementation along with retraining my thought processes to balance my body? As a Naturopath, you can guess the answer.

So how did I end up here? Two reasons, one was opening a brick and mortar (physical location) business, which we were renovating. The second was that our adult son was struggling with serious health and financial issues. In my quest to “take care” of him and my business/clients, I failed to take care of myself and ended up in severe adrenal fatigue or Phase 3.

I remember sitting at the table crying and saying, “I don’t think I can do this anymore.” “This” meaning taking care of everything and everyone else. I couldn’t function.  My dream of opening a wellness center and serving others started to feel like a nightmare. My temper was short and breakdowns, behind the scenes, were not uncommon.  So, instead of taking a “why did this happen to me” approach, I saw it as a way to serve others with the same challenges.  God again blessed me with another health challenge, so that I can share and serve others.

The light at the end of the tunnel is that it isn’t going to take me 5 years to recover because I had access to the best holistic health mentors/experts in the world and access to the best whole food products. Read more here on the next steps of my journey.

If you’re struggling to, I would love to help. Book a Wellness Strategy and let’s chat!