Firstly, here is a bit of recent health history. I am a 47 year old white female who has been suffering from progressive marked insomnia continuously for over 1.5 years now. Over the past 2 years my health history has been positive for 4 buldging discs in my spine, 1 cervical and 3 lumbar. My back is slowly healing and the pain is greatly reduced. I had encountered larnygitis for 3 consecutive winters in a row, and went the typical general medical route, and was told to not talk. Well, after the third year of this and with the larnygitis starting in the fall while on a trip to Israel and lasting for two months and my voice getting more raspy, I felt there could be something structurally wrong and sought out an ENT specialist who did a larnyscopy which showed a granuloma. During surgery to remove the granuloma, an large cyst was also found on my right vocal chord which was removed at that time. Subsequent to surgery , the surgeon placed me on a round of steriods as he wanted absolutely no swelling of the vocal chords and with no talking for 10 days. In looking back, I believe that was the time that the insomnia begain getting even worse, that was in January of 2007, and I believe that was like the final insult to my adrenal glands. I got to where I was only getting one hour of sleep a night and the window of opportunity for getting that hour came between the hours of 5a.m to 9 a.m.
I had believed that I was low on progesterone and estrogen dominant and felt that could be the cause of my insomnia. I was still menustrating (and still am) however it was erratic, therefore it was a few months before I could obtain a saliva sample. When I did obtain a saliva report it confirmed I was very low on progesterone and estrogen dominant w/ low norm testosterone. Progesterone was 44 pg/ml and norm for reporting lab is 75-220 during the luteal phase. I started on natural progesterone cream. After 2 months I showed no improvement in the insomnia, so I felt the root of the issue was elsewhere in the hormonal cascade. I got to the point I said I cannot take anymore of going on one hour of sleep I cannot go on like this and must cut back on some of my activities. I must have some sleep.
I began doing lots of research online until I would get information overload and would have to wait a bit and let it all absorb. A showed me a book by James L. Wilson ND, DC, PhD entitled "Adrenal Fatiuge The 21st Century Stress Syndrome" I studied this book and did some more research. I, initially thought that my cortisol levels were too high at night and that was keeping me from sleeping. But I also read, too low cortisol levels can cause insomnia, so I thought I should obtain dinural cortisol salivary samples and send them off for testing on 10/13/07. I have not mentioned that my window of opportunity to get a bit of sleep shifted to 9a - 10a.m to 11 a.m. to 12NN. The results of the salivary adrenal profile were: morning cortisol 1.3 (range for ZRT Labs 3.7-9.5), noon 3.0 (range 1.2-3.0), evening cortisol 0.7 (range 0.6-1.9), and night cortisol 0.1 (range 0.4-1.0).&nbs p; So, that showed that low cortisol levels were at issue and causing the insomnia rather than too high at night.
After getting these results, I started myself on the adrenal recovery program for severe adrenal exhaustion in Dr. Wilson's book using products devised by him (via a company, Future Formulations). One of the products is called adrenal rebuilder which is an adrenal cell extract, without hormones, from porcine and bovine sources.
I had hoped to have shown more improvement with the insomnia after 2 months of this regimen. I am getting more than one hour of sleep but no more than 3 hours every day and that sleep comes during the day when my coritsol levels rise to into the normal range. The premenstral nights are without more than one hour. I am really in need greater relief of the insomnia with a resetting of my circadian rhythm. I do not wish to take low dose cortef to raise my cortisol levels due to the concern of knocking out my adrenals ability to produce any coritsol on their own. I am aware of William Jefferies MD book regarding the safe uses of cortisol. What can help the insomnia? At times melatonin and a generic unisom will help to get some sleep of the day, but not always and it is contigent upon when cortisol comes into normal range.