Are you concerned about your adrenal function but don’t know how to get it tested? There’s a lot of misinformation out there about doing an adrenal fatigue test at home. But when you work with the right healthcare practitioner, you’ll learn that it really isn’t that difficult to test your adrenal health in the comfort of your own home. Let’s take a look at what you can do to get a clearer picture of what’s happening with your adrenal glands, and what you should do if these tests indicate a problem.
Life is busy and chaotic these days. Even when things are going well, you’ll probably find yourself dealing with everything from work pressures to kids, relationship problems, environmental toxins, and health concerns. These are all a natural part of the modern lifestyle, but they’re also stressors. And having multiple points of ongoing stress can be very bad for your body.
The adrenal glands are one of the most important parts of your body when it comes to stress. They’re part of the NeuroEndoMetabolic (NEM) stress response, which activates during stressful periods. The NEM stress response prompts the release of cortisol from the adrenal glands when you’re stressed, which helps support you during stressful periods. It also involves six circuits of related organ systems, all of which help distribute the work of dealing with stress.
But the NEM stress response is only meant to be active for the short term. When it is always active, because you’re always stressed, it causes the stress response to become unbalanced and dysfunctional. The adrenal glands become fatigued because of the high demand for cortisol, and all the circuits of the NEM stress response are negatively affected as well.
Your body’s circuits aren’t meant to stay in this stressed state for long periods of time. And when they do, it can lead to Adrenal Fatigue Syndrome (AFS), which is when your adrenals are fatigued and start to struggle to meet your need for stress hormones, causing the body’s circuits to become increasingly unbalanced and dysfunctional.
Adrenal fatigue isn’t recognized by most of the medical establishment, which is why you may need to know how to do an adrenal fatigue test at home.
Often when you have AFS, your adrenal issues are sub-clinical. This means that they usually aren’t severe enough to show up in normal testing. But this doesn’t mean that you don’t need professional intervention and guidance.
In AFS, it isn’t just your adrenal glands that are unhealthy, it’s also every circuit in your body as well as the individual components of each circuit. The Hormone circuit in particular can become very unbalanced when you have AFS. This is because the adrenal glands are one of the components in the Hormone circuit. As they decline in health, the other components of the circuit - the thyroid and sex organs (ovaries in women and testes in men) - can also become dysfunctional.
The poor health and malfunctions in these organs can become debilitating, causing a wide range of symptoms. You may experience everything from infertility to weight gain, hair loss, and low energy when this circuit and its components become dysfunctional. And in this situation, you may feel very unwell and struggle to understand what’s happening with your body when your symptoms are so complex.
A trained healthcare professional who is aware of AFS will be able to look at your symptoms and understand what’s happening with your body. This is the best way to get the help and guidance you need to start your recovery journey.
Before you learn how to do an adrenal fatigue test at home, you need to be able to recognize the common symptoms of this condition. This will let you know whether you need to be concerned about your adrenal function.
Adrenal fatigue is highly individual and consists of several different stages. In the early stages, this condition tends to be fairly mild and easy to dismiss as simple tiredness. This is the warning stage of AFS, and if it isn’t addressed, it can develop into a severe and even life-threatening condition.
Here are some of the symptoms that indicate that your adrenal glands may be in trouble:
You may have all or some of these symptoms in different combinations depending on your body’s unique constitution and the extent to which your body’s circuits are impacted. But if you’re still not sure, then there are some simple tests you can do at home that will help make the picture clearer.
Keep in mind that these tests won’t clinically identify whether your adrenal glands are unwell. But if you’re experiencing symptoms of adrenal fatigue, then these tests can help give you more evidence that something is wrong. Then, you can see your doctor for further testing.
So, here are some ways to do an adrenal fatigue test at home:
For this test, you’ll need a small light, a dark room, and a mirror. In the darkness, shine the light across your eye but not directly into it, and watch the response in the mirror.
There are a couple of ways that your eye can respond to this. If you’re healthy, then your pupil will immediately contract and stay that way for 20 seconds.
If your adrenals are exhausted, then your pupil won’t be able to hold the contraction. This failure to remain contracted is most often present in moderate and several adrenal fatigue cases. Your eye may then change between being contracted and being dilated while you watch. It may also contract and then dilate again within two minutes even if the light is on it. Your eye may then remain in the dilated state for 30-45 seconds before it can contract again.
You can also use this test to monitor your condition on an ongoing basis. Over time, as you improve, your eye should be able to stay contracted for longer.
Weight gain, especially around the middle, is a common symptom of high cortisol levels and adrenal fatigue. So if your waist/hip ratio is too high, it may indicate a problem. A healthy ratio is below 0.9 for men and 0.85 for women. You should also see your doctor if your ratio changes rapidly in a short period of time.
The waist/hip ratio test compares the circumference of your waist fat compared to your hip fat. Here’s how to measure it:
This is a blood pressure test that examines how your body responds to sudden changes. It’s based on the fact that your body produces epinephrine when you stand to help pump blood to the heart Here’s how to do it:
Basically, if your systolic (the first number) falls, then you’re very likely to have adrenal fatigue. A normal result is that the systolic increased by 10 to 20 points in this situation.
This test dates back to 1917 and is a fairly good indication of adrenal health. To perform it, scratch the inner surface of your forearm with a fork or the dull end of a pen. You should create a mark that’s about 6 inches long.
Usually, the mark will be white at first and then become red within 15-20 seconds. However, if it stays red for 20-30 seconds, then it may indicate adrenal fatigue.
Doing an adrenal fatigue test at home is not the same as a diagnosis. These tests give an indication that something may be wrong, but you will still need to see your healthcare practitioner if you notice a problem. They will be able to perform more intensive testing to determine the health and functioning of your adrenal glands.
Once you visit your healthcare practitioner, they will take a complete history and order further testing. Or you can even send away for a testing kit from a local provider.
The most effective test for adrenal fatigue at the moment is the saliva cortisol panel. This test can be done at home and involves taking saliva at 4 different times during the day. You then send your samples in to be analyzed at a lab.
This test will reveal how your cortisol levels are rising and falling throughout the day. At this stage, because there’s no single test for adrenal fatigue, this is the best option for examining adrenal function.
Once you’ve done an adrenal fatigue test at home, it’s time to take the next steps. The first thing you should do is visit your healthcare practitioner, to get guidance on your recovery journey. Once you’ve done that, you may need to make extensive lifestyle changes to reduce or eliminate sources of stress from your life and to address any underlying health issues or conditions.
An adrenal fatigue recovery journey usually includes changes such as:
There is no definitive test for adrenal fatigue, but this doesn’t mean that you can’t get a clear idea of what’s happening to your body. It is possible to do an adrenal fatigue test at home that will give you a clearer picture of your adrenal health. So, if you’re concerned, then here are the next steps to take:
For more help and guidance on adrenal fatigue and its impact on your health, talk to our expert team at +1 (626) 571-1234 or click here.
Doing an adrenal fatigue test at home is fairly simple. There are several tests you can do that will give you a clearer indication of whether your adrenal glands are healthy, so that you can better guide your health care practitioner during your next appointment.