Jiminy Cricket and My Adrenal Glands

You're supposed to trust your doctors. You're also supposed to trust your gut. There's definitely a balance of trusting your gut and having faith in your doctors. So in walks my Jiminy Cricket the other day while talking about my adrenal results with my doctor. Itching from the inside. Chirping loudly that something is wrong, but I couldn't substantiate it with knowledge - just feeling. Normal doesn't include crippling back pain and insomnia out of the middle of nowhere. That voice kept singing louder and louder. Normal doesn't include 18 months of unstable thyroid. CHIRP CHIRP CHIRP.

Here's the thing about your inner Jiminy Cricket - nothing bad ever happens from listening to it. And bad things often happen when you don't listen to it. We're so blessed with having an amplifier built into our soul.....we need to listen to it.

So when my doctor agreed to test my saliva cortisol levels, I was really grateful. But when she said 'tests seem normal, no treatment indicated', I didn't find myself being relieved...but rather being confused. I swore this *had* to be the problem from everything I had read about it. That said, I had no medical degree to back that "feeling"up. But if it's one thing I've learned about hormones - you have to follow the symptoms. You have to treat the symptoms. It doesn't matter what the standard reference range is for the lab if you still feel horrible.

So there I was, outside my comfort zone, challenging the doctor I had trusted the most of any in my life. And that, my friends, is how I found the answer to something. I talked over my symptoms with my doctor a couple weeks after the results came in and she agreed it was best to try and treat the symptoms that pointed to adrenal fatigue, even if the graphed cortisol levels didn't look as bad as expected.

She offered me a prescription of low dose hydrocortisone. I was hesitant to believe that steroids were the best option, but I had done a fair amount of research about adrenal fatigue - think 4 straight weeks of reading everything I could find - and I did know that a lot of people needed hydrocortisone to heal the stronger forms of adrenal fatigue. So I dove in, head first, and got myself the prescription. 5 mg at night right before bed and 15mg immediately upon waking in the morning. A decidedly small dose, so nothing to really worry about. I doubted it would do much, but I couldn't have been more wrong!

And here I sit 5 days later almost a new person. The constant sharp and aching pain I've had in my thyroid for over a year that no one knew what to do about? GONE. The pain in my back in my kidneys that I've had for years? GONE. The cracked and bleeding skin on my forearms that has plagued me for a year and a half? GONE. Debilitating insomnia that I've had since May? GONE. Crazy amounts of anxiety and stress that ovulation brings with it? GONE.

So while I don't think 5 days of treatment and a serious abatement of symptoms mean that this is all solved.........I do know that something really, really, really good is happening up in my B. O. D. Y.  Maybe for the first time in a long time, I don't feel like a medicated zombie. I feel filled with hope. It's like the sun in shining down *just* for me this past week. I swear it is! :)

I'll tell you what I'm most excited about (someone take a few swings of a wiffle bat to me for saying this)... is the end of my cycle. Is this adrenal/thyroid situation resolved enough to make my PMS disappear? If it is, I may actually be singing from the rooftop. If you're in hearing distance, it might sound like chirping at dusk. Appropriate, no? ;)

Five for Friday

1) Seventeen days. One thousand unique page views. 50 comments. A surprisingly solid audience in Russia. These are some of the surprises I have encountered in the last couple of weeks since I started blogging. My readers like (or at least visit) the posts I cringe over more often than the ones I publish with ease. The more it makes me cringe - the higher the page views. There is something to learn from that maybe?

2) You like awful drawings and memes that I make in Paint and Photo.Shop. I support your like of them. I will keep making them if you keep liking them. I was motivated (at first) to illustrate autocorrect blunders I experienced in a facebook group. It kept going from there. Here's a look at the early days though:

The time someone mistakenly recommended a cod liver oil pack (instead of a castor oil pack) for cysts...I'm assuming this was a TTA strategy?

Or the time someone was describing a really fertile person's insensitive comments as a 'snack in the face' (instead of a smack in the face)...

Or the time someone was recommending Power Mint Tea (instead of Peppermint Tea) for the alleviation of PMS symptoms. I love this one so much.

Or the original autocorrect blunder - when someone recommended taking some Mole Trim for cycle related pain (instead of Motrin). In this instance, I didn't draw anything per se... I did what anyone would do (umm...right?) - I went online and found a nicely trimmed mole and asked if this one was a good NSAID substitute! :)

3) I have found a bit of power mint empowerment to adding my voice to the chorus of fertility struggles. All of a sudden I feel like I have a right to be a part of the discussion. I have a right to not approach things with positivity all the time when they SUCK. These things, when you realize them, change you a little. You itch and twitch a little less. Not much. But enough to notice. And you write more. More than you thought you had in you.

4) The past month has been filled with a lot of sleep disturbances. My adrenals are going haywire. Some of the people I have talked to online seem to think my post peak compounded progesterone might be feeding my adrenals as they try to convert it to cortisol. My liver functioning may be a part of the puzzle - and all symptoms point to that being a possibility too. Not sure what to think of all of that, since the high dose of post peak progesterone is the only thing that prevents me from descending into the depths of (what I like to affectionately call) Charlie Sheen PMS. Yeah, it's that ugly. In any event - I'm having a rough time managing the waking/sleeping schedule over here. Trying a few things to kickstart my adrenals back into behaving, so we'll see if that works. Got any liver cleansing tips?

5) Despite having the worst insomnia and subsequent sleep schedule I've ever had, my chart is looking like a flipping dream this month in comparison to the 18 months charted prior. WHAT IS UP WITH THAT?! I normally get a light bleed of about 1-2 days, followed by 3 solid weeks of constant mucus, then a split peak (or a double peak followed by a split peak). Yes, it's really fun to chart. Sometimes I get back-to-back-to-back-to-back peaks for over a week and then an instantaneous period with a non-existent luteal phase despite post-peak support. Yes, it's really fun to time meds with that particular cycle trait. And recently (the last three months), I've started getting premenstrual spotting for days on end. Every chart is longer and longer - over 40 days now, when they used to be 28 on the dot. So you can imagine how I have been surprised this cycle when I have seen a 5 day bleed that showed a crescendo/ decrescendo quality to it with medium bleeding involved! And you can understand why I was surprised when that was followed by a DRY day. And even more surprised when fertile mucus showed up on Day 7 - like there is some normal ovulation going to magically happen on its own this month. Oh body-of-mine, you so crazy...

Happy Friday. That's today, right? :)