Posted by bleauberry on March 5, 2010, at 19:03:34 [reposted on March 6, 2010, at 9:37:52 | original URL]
In reply to Cortef? Makes No Sense For Addrenal Fatique, posted by Phillipa on March 5, 2010, at 13:05:58
It's all about the size of the dose.
Under 20mg there is very little if any slowdown of the adrenal glands. Larger doses, through feedback loops, will cause the adrenal glands to slow down, shrink, and eventually in the long run stop working altogether.
With adrenal fatigue, the idea is to allow the adrenals to continue working as they are, but to give the body the extra cortisol it needs to meet stress demands. With an exhausted adrenal gland, it cannot keep up with a stress demand and then is further depleted and exhausted. Cortef takes over that burden, allowing the adrenal gland to meet basic survival needs but be excused from being responsible for handling spikes in stress. This allows the adrenals to rest and heal, so that in the future they will be strong enough again to handle the spikes in stress without the assistance of cortef.
Sort of the same thing with an injured arm and a bandage. The arm can still work, but the bandage gives it some support. However, if you put a tight cast on that arm and leave it for a long long time, eventually that arm just won't work anymore when you take it out of the cast.
Some people have used up to 40mg without any negative effects on the adrenal glands. But generally speaking, 20mg is usually the safe upper limit.
With adrenal fatigue, we are only using cortef to supply the normal amounts of cortisol that are missing. Biological replacement amounts only. Doses should not exceed the cortisol level that a normal healthy body would produce on its own.
poster:bleauberry
thread:938694
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/health/20100104/msgs/938696.html