Adrenal Exhaustion/Air Hunger

[mortal12000]

Hi was just reading everyones stories about the AIR HUNGER sensation and i too have suffered this ever since 2004, i was shortly after diagnosed with graves disease, and the doctors were all quick to say it was the cause of all my symptoms due to severe anxiety. However after having the thyroid removed the problems only became even worse and the air hunger was unbearable, i was soon after put on the anti depressant MIRTAZAPINE and for a while it totally eliminated all the symptoms, for a while, then once more they returned with worsening severity. So i was put on valium with the mirtazapine, did barely anything at all. I started to research and try different things out, i think i have tried almost every single sedating herb, natural anti anxiety, and prescription anti anxiety there is. But eventually i found out that my problems were caused mainly in part to Gluten Sensitivity which has also exhausted my adrenals, one of the main symptoms of adrenal exhaustion is air hunger, and adrenal exhaustion can be brought on from stress and a whole host of things. Adrenal exhaustion can trigger thyroid problems and cause anxiety and panic attacks. I'm now taking a steroid called Prednisone to give my adrenals a rest and allow them to recover, but eliminating the gluten was without a doubt the best thing i could've done. I would find my air hunger always worst at nighttime after a big meal, many a trip to the ER i have done all fruitless. Its taken me 4 years of hell to finally start on the path to recovery, its very slow and takes along time. I hope this helps some of you and that you get on the right path back to good health.


This discussion is related to Air hunger - is this asthma or anxiety?.

[countrygma]

I have been studying for several years to try to figure out exactly what my breathing issue is and how to treat/cure it

In desperation due to it's worsening, I went the allopathic route and was told I have COPD, although not told at what stage I am. I was put on oxygen and albuterol.. also wanted me on advair, but I don't want to deal with those side affects.

Could you explain what your air hunger symptoms are? are they similar to COPD?

Are you doing better now? Thanks.

[mortal12000]

Yes i am doing much better now. My problem was lack of thyroid hormone being transported into receptors due to a severe lack of cortisol from severely beat up, burnout adrenals. I am now on 25mgs a day of Hydrocortisol and still have yet to find my optimal dose of Armour thyroid, currently on 3.5grains and still need more. I am also Thyroidless after RAI for Graves disease, you know before i found out my problem i thought i had everything from stuffed lungs to emphysemia to some kind of psych disorder, i even tried all the anti depressants, benzos, herbs, vitamins, mega doses of minerals, nothing worked, till i tried Hydro cortisone, within a hour no more air hunger, no more anxiety, no more rapid breathing, was trully heavenly. I still have slight symptoms of air hunger but as i raise the the armour and my adrenals recover bit by bit it seems its going away. You can be on as much as 30mgs of HC a day, the aim is to give your adrenals a rest allow them to recover then you slowly back off the HC bit by bit by bit. Anyway hope this was of some help to you. PS i was on Prednisone but are now on Hydrocortisone, Pred was abit too long acting and tended to keep me awake at night.

[mortal12000]

To further explain air hunger symptoms to you, it sort of starts slow and gets worse and worse. Its like your breathing but there is not enough air coming in, only there is and thats the problem. The more you breath, the more symptoms you get such as dizzyness, anxiety, restlessnes, heart palpations, panic attacks etc. Your chest becomes tight as your muscles all over your body sort of get tight, at times it felt like a huge dead weight on my chest, like a few big books or a band wrapped around my chest preventing my breathing. I would get it especially at night after a big meal, i still have minor symptoms of it at night even now, but now its not really any bother to me. Some nights i would be sitting there heaving on my chest, pulling so hard i would actually strain the muscles all over my chest, i would be up half the night heaving, pulling, hyperventilating non stop, could'nt sleep, could'nt eat, depression sunk in to the point i was ready to kill myself as a means of escape from the horrible crushing, never ending, seemingly untreatable, undiagnosable mystery illness that had the Drs all stumped. I had all the respiratory function tests done, had asthma studies, had my heart checked, my brain scanned, EVERY SINGLE TEST CAME BACK NORMAL!!!! I'm not sure the symptoms of COPD, if you explain them to me i'll try and relate, but thats how it was for me in detail.

[blessedx44]

Hi mortal12000,

How have you been since your last post on this subject?  I would really love to know.

I have been searching for a few years now to find some meaning to what I've been going through these last 3 years.  Everything you've described with the breathing issue is exactly what I've been experiencing.  Just recently I wondered if adrenal exhaustion had something to do with my inability to breath correctly.  Like you, I have tried every herbal, vitamin, mineral and supplement you can think of and nothing has helped.  If you were to take a look inside my bedroom there are pill bottles everywhere.  I even have a drawer full of asthma meds that do nothing for me.  I too have had all the tests done which showed normal and all 9 of the doctors I've seen think I'm nuts.  That eventually left me hopeless.  When doctors can't find anything wrong with you then you have no where else to turn. Suicide has often crossed my mind between the gasps and tears that I cry nightly.  The only thing that keeps me going is the thought of my purpose in this life in which I have been blessed with.  Surely God didn't create me to live a life of pure torment and then death.  I just refused to believe that.  Eventually I drew closer to God and I'm no where near better but I keep seeking to find an end to this nightmare.  He gives me strength to keep searching.

And in searching I finally stumbled on this post and saw your comments.  I couldn't believe I was reading exactly what I've been experiencing coming from your post.  And I can't find any other posts who explain these symptoms as you do.  Now I'm left to figure out how to handle this information.

First let me tell you a little bit of my history.  From the on going symptoms, I do believe I've had a problem with low cortisol my entire life and hypothyroidism as well.  As a little girl I've always had an abundance of yeast overgrowth.  I was born premature and from early on I'm sure I had a host of antibiotics, but my parents weren't never educated on the dangers of too much antibiotics and yeasts.  This is what I believe put the strain on my adrenals.  I'm 44 years old, still unable to conceive and I have a mile long list of symptoms.  I was diagnosed with pcos which is causing the infertility but I'm sure it has something to do with everything else that's out of whack in my body.  I did conceive once but lost it at 7 weeks.  This was after following much fasting and a low carb diet.  I lost 20 pounds.  I had a rough time with the loss and had to have a d&c which made me even more depressed because I had waiting 40 years for this baby and at that time it didn't matter if it were dead or alive as long as it was still inside of me.  I guess due to the state of mind I was in I felt it would be ok as long as it was still attached to me.  Shortly after this nightmare my body started acting weird.  I believe at this point is where my adrenals really hit rock bottom and haven't recovered since.

While trying to figure out what has been happening with my body, my laptop became my bestfriend.  I've been on this internet every day looking and searching.  I've stumble on a few websites that led me to my low thyroid because I have 99 out of the 100 symptoms.  I've also read up on adrenal fatigue and wondered about it.  Finally I ordered a home test kit to see what my hormones were doing and it came back showing low progesterone, low dhea and periods of low cortisol.  I found a female doctor who was willing to hear me about a year ago.  I was convinced everything pointed to my thyroid.  I began taking isocort which I ordered online and felt weird so I talked my doctor into giving me hydrocortisone.  I took the hydrocortisone for about 2 weeks and then I began taking armour on the third week.  The hydrocortisone finally got me out of the bed but my breathing was worse and I hated the way I felt on it, but I continued for about a month or two.  I kept raising the armour 1/2 grain per week but I never felt any better.  Finally I just couldn't take it anymore and stopped everything by lowering a little each week.  I think maybe I stopped within 2 weeks by lowing each day.  Shortly after this is when I believe I had a thyroid storm.  Blood pressure went haywire, sky high, severe dizziness, weakness in my body and heart beating out of my chest.  It was very scary. I really thought I was dying.

After that experience I became more depressed because I just knew I had the right items to get my health back.  I was scared to ever touch the hydrocortisone again. I returned to my doctor and she did a feces test on me which showed positive for parasites and possible systemic yeast infections.  I did a detox which removed alot of things that I didn't know were in me.  I couldn't believe it unless I saw with my own eyes.  I did about 3 liver flushes and these little pests were even coming out of my liver.  Finally we've began to focus on the yeast which she believes is now in every organ due to me showing evidence of it all my life.  I'm taking nystatin and diflucan regularly.  I believe it has helped alot with this breathing thingy.  I've stopped it for now due to the additional symptoms showing up.  For some reason my skin has turned 3 shades darker and the little bit of energy I did have has disappeared somewhere.  My doctor ordered another saliva test on me and it showed very low cortisol levels.  But she only requested that I follow a gluten free diet and a sugarless diet as well.  So here I am now.  I did order some more isocort because it seemed atleast more gentler than the hydrocortisone was last time.  I have to keep in mind last time I was also fighting parasites and yeast and that could have caused some interference with the hydrocortisone and armour.  I can't be sure.  The isocort is helping some but I hate the weird feelings that go along with it when it first gets into my system.  I keep reading and I am so scared that my adrenals will stop functioning all together if I use the recommended dosage of isocort or hydrocortisone.  With my previous use of them after stopping, my adrenals began to hurt as witnessed from the slight pain on both sides of my back.  

As for now, I am still gasping which is mostly at night.  Maybe not as much.  I'm taking a host of b vitamins and an adrenal cortex supplement.  I believe these are helping.  I just hate it when I can't go to sleep due to gasping for air and when I finally do fall asleep it's like 4am and I get up at 7am for work.

I think my biggest fear is trying the armour again.  I really hated my first experience with it.  I would really like to know what you've learned and I would love to know how you are doing now.  I have no one in my life to talk to about this because no one understands what I'm feeling or going through.  Everyone's so use to me being down that they just seem to ignore me now a days.   I feel as if I make their lives miserably because of what I have to go through.  I have 3 beautiful teenage daughters that I would love to run, bike and play tennis with but my body really has me shut down.  I can only imagine the thoughts that go through my husbands head when he sees me laying down again.  He' very active and I know my issues have affected our entire marriage and we've been married 24 years.  I really hate that I'm going through this and I really want to get better to live like I know I should be living.  I feel as though I've been cheated by these life mishaps.

I am so sorry for how long this post is but you must understand, this is the only post on the net that describes in detail what I'm going through to a T!  I No doctor of mine, and I've had 9, has even come close to figuring out what's going on with this breathing thing.  Thanks so much for your input and I'm waiting PATIENTLY (well maybe not) :)  to hear from you.

Angela

[Sherle]

Have you tried Young Living Essential Oil's product called Thyromin?  It has been a miracle for me.  If you get Elaine Hollingsworth's book called "Take Control of Your Life and Escape the Sickness Industry" (http://www.doctorsaredangerous.com/ ) she says why you should NEVER take a thyroid medication before attending to your adrenal glands. You will feel WORSE. This happened to me.  Armour thyroid didn't help me but gave me shocking heart racing symptoms as my adrenals needed to build up first.  My adrenals were severely drained, and it took me 3 months of taking 2 Thyromin capsules per evening to get back onto the edge of  'normal.'  My energy increased amazingly and my other problems with thyroid insufficiency decreased hugely. There is a temperature chart I can send you that helps you know how much Thyromin to take and when to take it.  I would never want to be without this wonderful product.  Somehow or other, Thyromin does build up the adrenals first and then the thryoid builds up as well. If your adrenals are as low as mine were and it sounds like they are, you might want to purchase some Thyromin, but don't expect miracles before 3 months. You can order Thyromin from here: http://www.youngliving.com/en_US/index.html  .  It is expensive, but worth every single cent.  If you are outside the USA it can be difficult to purchase. I'm in Australia and have to order it in from a friend in New Zealand. If you have problems you can quote my distributor number to get it at the cheapest price. (You have to join up to become a distributor or else you pay a super high price for the products). Let me know if you need help.  I've never found anything else in 29 years that helped me like Thyromin has. If you want to contact me, leave a message for Sherle at www.themeofthebible.com/forums and I'll answer you.