Posted by bleauberry on August 24, 2009, at 18:22:23
In reply to adrenal fatigue!!, posted by sam K on August 24, 2009, at 12:23:02
Go through the phone book and google to look for a Naturopath or an Integrative MD (a full fledged MD also trained in holistic/natural). You can also call/visit health food stores and ask for references of an alternative or integrative doctor. You could probably even make calls to hospitals or random doctor's offices in the phone book and ask for someone who is trained in natural treatments. Most likely the phone book will be good enough. Regardless, you will get some names.
The reason you want a Naturopath, or better an Integrative Medical Doctor or Integrative Nurse Practitioner, is because the kinds of tests you are interested in are routine in their offices. They usually have all the testing kits on site, or can get them easily mailed to you, and they are familiar with all this stuff.
Computer technology is amazing. You can actually get just about any test you want online by yourself without a physician. Type in a google search for something like "home lab tests", "home lab test testosterone", or "home lab test dysbiosis", or similar. A place I've dealt with several times is Integrative Psychiatry. They take your order on the web page, a Nurse Practioner calls the lab to order your test, it is mailed to you with instructions (whether it is something you do yourself or need to have blood drawn somewhere), you mail it back, the NP gets the results from the lab and sends them to you. There is no medical advice involved. Just pure tests plain and simple. Good people. Takes a couple weeks. There are others I've seen online with a much wider array of tests.
There are a half dozen excellent labs that do all kinds of specialty testing. Genova, Great Smokies, Diagnostecs, and others. You need one of the above mentioned clinicians to order it for you though, or you can order it through a third party online.
What I've learned through lots of testing this way is that it is helpful to see exactly what is wrong, what needs attention, and then you can take steps medicinally, herbally, and dietary, to address those concerns. Instead of shooting blind.
But what the tests don't tell you is...what caused these things to go bad.
My first test was Adrenal STress Index, which measured cortisol X4, DHEA, some immune markers, and gluten response. I had rather bad adrenal fatigue, way below the standard range. A year of focused food choices brought the adrenals back. Without this test, I never would have known that about 20% of my symptoms were from a rather significant gluten intolerance. Heck, I ate wheat every single day just like everyone. I was friggin poisoning myself and had no clue. Unfortuneatly, I am still testing gluten intolerant three years later, though it has improved. The point is...I would have never known without the test. Heck, I had never even heard the word gluten.
But that was just the beginning. A later test, the DMSA provoked urine challenge test, based on amalgams I had, showed highly elevated levels of mercury, lead, and cadmium. Lead was the worst and I have no clue how I got so much. It is a toxic world we live in. Amalgams were removed and I still do periodic low dose frequent dose oral DMSA chelation.
But that wasn't the end of it. A diagnosis of probable Lyme disease explained everything...the adrenal fatigue, depression, brain fog, anxiety, heavy metal accumulation, aches, gut dysbiosis, gluten intolerance, everything.
Along the way I had other tests which were not useful. For example the neurotransmitter metabolite test. Useless. Better to just try one at a time...5htp, tyrosine, DLPA, Gaba, glutamine, to identify what is weak.
A fatty acids profile test was also useless, except to show that things were definitely screwed up. Interestingly, I had been taking normal doses of fish oil for a couple years, and those oils were way off the charts...pushing other important fatty acids way below their normal ranges. Balance is what is important with all things, not the dose. I stopped fish oil and started feeling better. Never would have guessed that.
Lots of other things...magnesium, B vitamins, vitamin D, etc...interesting but not very useful. except perhaps the low vit D...there is a lot of debate about...old school says the more the better...new school says maybe not...low D is a common marker for a hidden infectious organism. If you're drinking milk, taking a vitamin, and maybe fish oil, and your vitamin D test on the lowish side, you got a hidden problem. D aint the problem, it is the outward hint of a hidden one, and trying to increase it with supplementation risks worsening, not improving, the disease that is causing it to be low. The diseases I am thinking of have two things in common...a primary symptom is depression, and they thrive on Vit D.
In my opinion probably best tests to get are:
Stool sample, looking for infectious organisms.
Urine sample, looking for unique telltale markers of infectious organisms.
Gut permeability, looking for extent of damage done by infectious organisms.
Adrenal Stress Index with Gluten. (Diagnostecs)
DMSA provoked urine metals.
Western Blot by Igenex Lab.If there is gut dysbiosis, it will be seen, and is a very likely culprit of your symptoms. What goes wrong in the gut directly poisons the brain and all the rest of the body. A psychiatrict patient has a high likelihood of disease here, because they are under physical and emotional stress, their immune systems are compromised, and they are probably not eating excellent foods consistently.
Anyway, sorry I went so long here, you can get any tests you want. The only real effort is finding the doctor who practices this stuff...there are at least a couple or more in any moderate sized city...and paying for it. Insurance will sometimes cover some of these, but many are not covered. It is worth your while to find a site online that sells a ton of tests, so you can read about them and decide for yourself which ones will give you the most useful information. Then get the tests where ever you want, once you know what you are looking for, why, and what you can afford.No matter what test you get and what the results are, the concrete foundation to healing no matter what meds or supplements you take, will be your food choices. I've spoke about that topic here many times. It is similar to the Atkins diet, the Candida diet, the low carb diet. That is where healing starts and endures.
All that said, I don't have a whole lot of faith in many tests due to their limited specificity and their flawed reliability. The above mentioned tests are good. Others, I dunno. It is easy to test for some hidden infectious cause of symptoms with select herbs. Candida, Lyme, parasites, viruses, any number of a dozen critters with psychiatry written all over them...easy to test with herbs. It is easy to test for low neurotransmitters with select supplements. It is easy to test for food problems with rotation elimination diets.
poster:bleauberry
thread:913867
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20090818/msgs/913903.html