How is adrenal fatigue identified? Do you feel tired all the time, but when you go to your doctor, you only hear that nothing’s wrong with you? If you're feeling tired, having difficulty concentrating, and experiencing a range of weird symptoms, you may think it's the natural result of living a busy lifestyle. But the truth is that all of these issues can indicate a much deeper problem than most people expect.
Adrenal fatigue is a little-recognized condition that’s often caused by excessive and ongoing stress. Yet it’s mostly ignored by the medical establishment. This can make it very difficult for you to determine if you’re experiencing this condition.
This article will help answer the question: how is adrenal fatigue identified, and what can you do about it?
There’s a lot of controversy about adrenal fatigue in the medical establishment at the moment. Many medical practitioners don’t believe that it exists, and yet there are increasing numbers of people who exhibit its symptoms.
This may be because of the high incidence of ongoing, chronic stress in the modern world. The human body has a mechanism known as the NeuroEndoMetabolic (NEM) stress response that helps it cope with stress. The NEM consists of six circuits of related organ systems that help share the burden of handling stress. The NEM stress response is activated during stressful periods, prompting the adrenal glands to release cortisol. The high levels of cortisol then cause changes throughout the body that create the so-called fight or flight response. This response helps you survive a threat, such as by running from a predator.
However, the NEM stress response is meant to be a short-term solution. When stress is chronic, the adrenal glands can start to fatigue and become dysfunctional. The body’s circuits then become unbalanced because they’re forced to stay in a ‘stressed state’ for longer than normal. If left unaddressed, this can lead to a condition known as Adrenal Fatigue Syndrome (AFS).
AFS occurs when the adrenals are fatigued and start to fail in their work. At the same time, the body’s circuits as a whole as well as their individual components start to become unbalanced and dysfunctional. This can lead to serious symptoms, but often it starts slowly and gradually and worsens over time.
And the stress that brings on adrenal fatigue doesn’t have to be a traumatic event. Instead, it can be a lot of everyday, little stressors that all combine to create a serious problem.
Before asking the question, how is adrenal fatigue identified, you must consider the complications that can arise when your adrenal glands become fatigued. These complications can affect every part of your body, from your hormones to your immune system, brain, and heart health.
The adrenal glands are part of the Hormone circuit along with the thyroid and the ovaries in women and testes in men. These three organs work together and separately to help supply your body with all the hormones it needs.
However, this close connection between these three organs means that when one organ becomes dysfunctional, the others do the same. So, as the adrenal glands become dysfunctional, the thyroid and sex organs will do the same. This can result in unbalanced hormone levels, health conditions such as underactive thyroid or PMS, as well as symptoms such as weight gain, hair loss, and temperature sensitivity.
The issues that arise as the Hormone circuit becomes unbalanced in this way will only complicate the underlying adrenal fatigue. The symptoms and health conditions will cause more stress, which will increase the body’s demand for cortisol, worsening AFS. This is a downward spiral that can get very dangerous if you don't correct it promptly and properly. That’s why it’s so important to get professional help as soon as possible.
There is no specific test for adrenal fatigue at this stage. This is partly because the symptoms associated with adrenal fatigue may also indicate a different medical condition. This is why your doctor may have to do a range of tests to rule out other causes of fatigue using a process of elimination.
Some of the conditions that your doctor may test for are Addison’s disease and adrenal insufficiency. Both of these are conditions where the adrenal glands don’t produce enough cortisol and sometimes other hormones. To test for these conditions, your doctor may recommend:
Stimulation tests and other similar tests can help determine if your body is producing inadequate levels of cortisol.
However, these are only a way to identify Addison's disease, and not necessarily adrenal fatigue. Addison's is a condition where no cortisol is produced. In adrenal fatigue, there is a wide range in the adrenals' ability to produce cortisol. This zone is where most AFS sufferers fall, as Addison's is actually a very rare condition.
There also are a range of other conditions that can cause similar symptoms to adrenal fatigue. This is why your doctor may recommend:
These tests can take a lot of time and be expensive. That’s why you need a medical professional to guide you and ensure that you’re not wasting a lot of your time and money. Just remember that not every test is necessary. Testing should be used to evaluate your medical professional’s clinical judgment based on your overall condition, not the other way around.
When you’re asking how is adrenal fatigue identified, you need to be aware of several issues with laboratory testing. The first is that adrenal fatigue includes several different stages, from the early, or less severe stage, to the extreme and often life-threatening final stages.
Depending on what stage you’re in, your adrenal glands will have different degrees of dysfunction. However, this doesn’t mean that your cortisol levels will be abnormal all the time. In the early stages of adrenal fatigue, your glands can be fatigued while still producing enough cortisol. This will show up on blood tests and may lead your doctor to decide that your adrenal glands are healthy when they're not.
Laboratory tests for adrenal function also evaluate the results on a bell curve. This means people may be at one extreme or the other but still be within the so-called normal range. This can result in people not getting their condition identified, despite having serious symptoms.
Many people with adrenal fatigue are in the early stages when they start seeking help. This often means that their AFS is sub-clinical, which means that it’s not yet severe enough to clearly identify. Unfortunately, conventional medicine often isn’t set up to address these kinds of sub-clinical disorders, so doctors dismiss them. This is why many people with adrenal fatigue often don’t get the help they need until their condition is severe or life-threatening.
The way to overcome this issue is to look for a medical professional who focuses on functional medicine. This branch of medicine sees the body as an interconnected system, where dysfunction is related to the whole, and seeks to address the root cause of problems to restore optimum functioning. This can be the most effective approach when dealing with AFS.
So, finally we come to the question, how is adrenal fatigue identified? Unfortunately, it isn’t simple or straightforward. You’ll need to see a functional medicine provider, who will take a medical history that looks at your overall health and how that relates to the systems in your body. You will also need to do testing at home.
If your doctor asks you to do a saliva cortisol test, then you will need to take the kit home with you. This type of test examines your cortisol levels at different times throughout the day, to build a complete picture of the rhythm of your cortisol levels. It’s based on the idea that your cortisol levels follow a curve throughout the day. Basically, your cortisol levels should be at their highest in the morning and decline throughout the day, so any deviation from this curve could indicate a problem.
Here’s what you’ll need to know about this test:
Once you’ve answered the question, how is adrenal fatigue identified, you need to understand how your medical provider will interpret the tests. The most effective test for this disorder is a saliva cortisol test, which examines your cortisol levels throughout the day.
The first thing you need to know is that your cortisol levels will be at their highest in the morning and drop throughout the day. This is normal. However, stress can change this rhythm dramatically. Individuals can also react differently to varying cortisol levels, which is why it’s so important that your doctor looks at your health and condition overall rather than just at the results of the testing.
Here are some examples of cortisol test results and what they can mean:
This is when the morning cortisol is elevated beyond the normal range. Either the body has a hard time waking up and therefore has to produce high amounts of cortisol to wake up, or the person wakes up stressed. The sufferer might feel a little tired, but is still able to function and go through the day relatively functional.
This is when the cortisol is high throughout the day. Someone who is undergoing a lot of stress or has external toxins/stressors could have these high cortisol elevations in the morning, afternoon, evening, and night. They might be dealing with symptoms like anxiousness, jitteriness, difficulty sleeping, difficulty focusing, and heart palpitations.
This is when all the measurements of cortisol are low throughout the day. It's indicative and classic of adrenal exhaustion where the adrenals are too tired to produce cortisol anymore. Symptoms of fatigue and tiredness are evident throughout the day and don't improve with caffeine consumption.
This is when the normal cortisol curve is reversed, and cortisol is high at night instead of in the morning. People in this case experience low cortisol levels in the morning, resulting in sluggishness, and high levels at night, which will make it almost impossible for you to sleep and relax when you need it the most.
This is when the noon or the evening cortisol is elevated when it shouldn't be. This could be secondary to acute stressors that cause the cortisol to spike at those times.
People can also show a normal cortisol curve with testing and yet still have symptoms of adrenal fatigue. This is why it’s so important that your doctor not just look at the cortisol levels, but the overall picture as well.
Having high morning cortisol levels and feeling sluggish at the same time can mean that your body is already used to very high cortisol levels. This can easily occur if you're stressed over a long period of time. In this case, your sluggishness is due to the fact that your body is demanding more cortisol and your adrenals just can’t keep up with the demand.
If your cortisol levels are low in the morning, you will usually wake up feeling sluggish and unrefreshed. However, some people with low levels wake up feeling anxious as well as experiencing other symptoms such as palpitations or high blood pressure. This is the opposite of what low cortisol levels are supposed to do to the body.
This symptom occurs when the adrenal glands then turn on the sympathetic nervous system. This is often done in response to stress and low cortisol levels. It's adrenaline that's causing the anxiety in this case rather than cortisol. Giving further support to raise the cortisol levels in these cases will only make this anxiousness even worse.
The answer to "how is adrenal fatigue identified" isn’t an easy or straightforward one. People with this disorder often find themselves going from doctor to doctor, trying to get answers for their symptoms without relief. Sometimes, even getting adrenal issues identified by a doctor can seem almost impossible. If you've found yourself in this cycle of testing, then here’s what to do:
For more help on how to identify adrenal fatigue and develop a recovery plan, talk to our team at +1 (626) 571-1234 or click here.
The answer to how is adrenal fatigue identified isn’t straightforward, as there aren’t any specific tests that can identify this condition. Instead, talk to your doctor about a saliva cortisol panel, which gives a clearer picture of cortisol levels throughout the day.
