Yet another loss of libido, impaired memory, and stress intolerance.

[1cc]

**Could stress or adrenal fatigue be a cause for low Free T and DHT ? I think it's important that I know about this detail/link, if any.

When your hormones are out of balance, it could cause a general imbalance. It is best to address what is evident and see what effect it has.

Try adopting a hypoglycemic diet and see if it makes you feel better. You need to eat small meals approximately every 2-3 hours. This is to prevent your blood sugar from dropping. Low blood sugar is what causes the most uncomfortable symptoms. Foods to avoid: sugar (even very sweet fruit), anything made with white flour, white rice (use brown rice), white pasta (use whole wheat pasta), white bread (use whole wheat bread with no sugar added, check ingredients). Everything else you can eat. Try to eat a little more on the protein side. This should stabilise your blood sugar after a few days, and reduce your symptoms.

 

[chip douglas]

Ok thanks for the pointer.

However what comes to mind is : what is causing the blood sugar to drop in the first place ? It seems adrenals can act as a prime player in contributing to blood sugar instability.

It really burst my balloon to see it may not be adrenal fatigue, although it's not 100% certain that isn't yet.

I wonder if I'll ever really find what's the matter with me. It's totally depressing.

I've noticed something about the late afternoon drop that I usually experience:

If I spend a quiet afternoon home, without any stress, I'll likely won't have any confusion, sugars craving, HOWEVER if even at home, I spend the afternoon reading and scouring the web searching for a cause for what I have, THEN this is a stress and I'll start having those sugar cravings.

The same things will happen if I meet someone and talks with that person, it seems at some point in the conversation I feel I lose control and cannot speak talking, and THEN I'll start experiencing those symptoms too. I have already a propensity to have racing thoughts, and any stimulus will precipitate this and bring about the symptoms that look like those of low blood sugar. Most of the time, I do not have low blood sugar at the time I have those symptoms, only rarely have I checked my BG while experiencing those symptoms and have found it to be low--9 out of 10 times it is not low--isn't weird ??

At times I really feel desperate, cause I cannot find any palpable cause for what it is I have, and my primary care physician has recently told me that if I had anything serious, that he would DEFINATELY have picked it up early, after the great number of blood test and urinary collections I've had, so he said : take it easy and don't worry too much since you don't have anything serious. He said I should probably look into the stress issue more.

It doesn't mean he's totally right, but to some extent I'd tend to think he's not far from the truth.

Something I posted about not long ago, and haven't had any replies to is :

does depression in and of itself can lower FT and TT and/or DHT. We all know that depression can lower sex drive, although I do not know for sure through which pathways it does so.

 

[chip douglas]

Further, I dimmed the light in the livingroom and asked my girlfriend to obliquely shine a small flashlight in my eye for a minute to examine whether my pupils would stay contract or rather flicker.

She noticed that upon the application of the light, the pupil contracted, then it started to dilate and contract in some sort of a rhythmic fashion for the 1 minute she held the light in my eye.

I then proceeded to conduct the same thing on my gf, and she too experiences contriction and dilation--mind you she's way tired, has supporting me in this whole thing I've had for 8 years, has taken it's tool on her as well.

It's an interesting detail I thought i'd post.

 

[FunkOdyssey]

Here's something relevant and interesting about the connection between hypoglycemia and LH / testosterone suppression:

Clin Endocrinol (Oxf). 2005 Feb;62(2):217-22. Related Articles, Links
Click here to read
Preserved inhibitory effect of recurrent hypoglycaemia on the male gonadotrophic axis.

Oltmanns KM, Peters A, Kern W, Fehm HL, Born J, Schultes B.

Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Leubeck, Luebeck, Germany. oltmanns@medinf.mu-luebeck.de

OBJECTIVE: Hypoglycaemia-induced decreases in male LH and testosterone concentrations are possibly mediated by activation of the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis or by an increase in PRL. As counterregulatory stress hormone release is attenuated during recurrent hypoglycaemia, we questioned whether the gonadotrophic axis and PRL adapt similarly. DESIGN: We performed two consecutive hypoglycaemic clamps on day 1 and one clamp on the following day in 15 healthy men. Blood concentrations of gonadotrophins, PRL, testosterone, ACTH and cortisol were measured during the first and the third clamp, taking place at the same time of day. RESULTS: During hypoglycaemia, serum concentrations of LH and testosterone decreased (P < 0.003 for both), PRL, ACTH and cortisol increased (P < 0.001), and FSH remained unchanged (P = 0.90). The hypoglycaemia-induced decreases in LH and testosterone concentrations were similar during the first and the last clamp (P > 0.28 for both) whereas the increase in PRL, ACTH and cortisol was markedly attenuated during the third clamp (P < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: LH and testosterone responses do not adapt to recurrent hypoglycaemia, whereas the increase in PRL is attenuated, indicating adaptation. Considering the marked decrease in the responses of PRL and the HPA axis after antecedent hypoglycaemia, the data suggest that the hypoglycaemia-induced decreases in LH and testosterone concentrations, not adapting to recurrent hypoglycaemia, are mediated independently, probably by blood glucose itself.

PMID: 15670199 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

 

[FunkOdyssey]

It really burst my balloon to see it may not be adrenal fatigue, although it's not 100% certain that isn't yet.

I wonder if I'll ever really find what's the matter with me. It's totally depressing.

I've noticed something about the late afternoon drop that I usually experience:

If I spend a quiet afternoon home, without any stress, I'll likely won't have any confusion, sugars craving, HOWEVER if even at home, I spend the afternoon reading and scouring the web searching for a cause for what I have, THEN this is a stress and I'll start having those sugar cravings.

I know you are eager to figure this out, but try not to jump to any conclusions before reading the Adrenal Fatigue book. Your symptoms are so strongly suggestive of adrenal fatigue that I would not rule it out based on your test results.

I would like to see your results of an ACTH challenge test. This is one of the better ways to determine if your adrenal glands are able to properly respond to stress -- after a dose of ACTH, your cortisol levels should rise dramatically, and this does not occur in adrenal fatigue.

 

[1cc]

However what comes to mind is : what is causing the blood sugar to drop in the first place ? It seems adrenals can act as a prime player in contributing to blood sugar instability.

If a person has low blood sugar problems, the Adrenals are a major suspect because cortisol controls blood sugar. Testosterone also controls blood sugar. When my DHT (my DHT used to be below normal) went up, my blood sugar control was much better as well.

It really burst my balloon to see it may not be adrenal fatigue, although it's not 100% certain that isn't yet.

Yes, this has not been conculded yet.

I wonder if I'll ever really find what's the matter with me. It's totally depressing.

You will find out, it's just a matter of time. You're in the right place, thats for sure.

If I spend a quiet afternoon home, without any stress, I'll likely won't have any confusion, sugars craving, HOWEVER if even at home, I spend the afternoon reading and scouring the web searching for a cause for what I have, THEN this is a stress and I'll start having those sugar cravings.

The same things will happen if I meet someone and talks with that person, it seems at some point in the conversation I feel I lose control and cannot speak talking, and THEN I'll start experiencing those symptoms too.

This sounds so much like the symptoms of Adrenal Fatigue?

I have already a propensity to have racing thoughts, and any stimulus will precipitate this and bring about the symptoms that look like those of low blood sugar.

Do you by any chance suffer from any type of anxiety disorder?

symptoms that look like those of low blood sugar.

How does low blood sugar feel to you? How do you make this feeling go away? How do you know this is low blood sugar?

At times I really feel desperate, cause I cannot find any palpable cause for what it is I have, and my primary care physician has recently told me that if I had anything serious, that he would DEFINATELY have picked it up early, after the great number of blood test and urinary collections I've had, so he said : take it easy and don't worry too much since you don't have anything serious. He said I should probably look into the stress issue more.

It doesn't mean he's totally right, but to some extent I'd tend to think he's not far from the truth.

The only full set of labs you have so far were done at Pathmedical, and were not sure how reliable they are? If you had a full set of reliable labs, it would have been easier to conclude something. As of yet, you still need to do thyroid and DHT again. Is there any other labs your doctor has done that you haven't posted yet?

Something I posted about not long ago, and haven't had any replies to is :

does depression in and of itself can lower FT and TT and/or DHT. We all know that depression can lower sex drive, although I do not know for sure through which pathways it does so.

How we feel psychologically can affect hormones to some degree. Depression will lower DHEA usually. Sex drive also has a psychological aspect as well besides the hormonal aspect. If a person is depressed, then they will probably not be in the mood for sex. Do you suffer from depression?

 

[chip douglas]

You have asked very good questions in the above post 1cc--I need to get to bed now as I'll be on the road tomorrow, but when I'm back tomorrow evening, I'll take time to answer them all.

Thanks again for helping me and all who have chimed in so far.

Best

 

[chip douglas]

Do you by any chance suffer from any type of anxiety disorder?
Well, before I went to see Dr. Braverman, my Primary care physician told me that I had dysthymia, and had prescribed Paxil at a very low dose. I refused to take the serotoninergic on the grounds that it would further contribute to lowering an already very low (at times) to non existent sex drive. Then Braverman after the bloodwork and the various psychological tests he ran on me, said I had dysthymia and ADHD--I was then told by Dr. Braverman's clinic that my ADHD was not *real* ADHD as evidenced by the results of my P300 wave. Her medical assistant told me I had much anxiety and that anxiety was responsible for the ADHD symptoms. Interestingly, and quite worthwhile mentioning is that when I attended elementary school, teachers would call in to tell my parents that I had a hard time maintaining focus, would start something and never finish it or take it to the end. Back home, I couldn't stay still and further had issues staying focused long enough to review my notes--I'd very very often put things off, exactly like I still do. I also often feel very much restless. Last summer I had some Deprenyl as an attempt to alleviate the sex drive, but it didn't help at all, as I stopped the drug cold turkey. I knew I shouldn't do that, but risked taking the chance just the same. End result, I ended in the ER 4 times suffering with panic attacks, then after the fourth times, the drug had pretty much cleared my system, and the panic attacks were almost a thing of the past--at least I never ever experienced anything alike them after that point. It's also IMORTANT to point out that never in my life have I ever felt anything even getting closer to a panic attack--it's only after I used and stopped the Deprenyl cold turkey that I did. Now I don't have any panic attacks.

Then after some time I started having arrythmias. The more anxious I grew the more I had, so I decided to have them checked out. I wound up in the ER quite a few times, and on each occasions they'd performed an EKG. Yet they were never performed at the right time, and therefore could never pick anything wrong with my heart. I then saw my PCP and asked to have a Holter Monitor set up for a 48 hour period. I told him I knew how to trigger them arrhythmias, and indeed after the 48/H period was over, they called me to tell me they had indeed picked some, and told me not to worry as they're benign sinus arrhythmias. That relieved me much and since then have only had a few on rare occasions.

I'm prone to anxiety. In my mind things can never be simple and therefore my mind is VERy RARELY resting. Racing thoughts are common to me. For instance, whenever I feel fine/well, then I'll start having anxiety, cause it doesn't feel right to me to not worry over something. I feel if I don't worry about my health, that something bad could happen, or that it wouldn't be responsible of me to not think about doing the best i can about my health. So this keeps my mind in a constant state of searching for the root cause of my health issue--the most annoying and prominent one is the low sex drive.

So Dr. Braverman, my local primary care provider, and yet another lady doctor who knows me well, all think my main issue is connected with anxiety.

Dysthymia, is said to be a state where one is chronicaly moderately sad or blue. This fits well the description of above. I'm very rarely deeply dejected, but there's always this sense that all is not fine, hovering above me, or if you will, haunting me. I'd say that in my 34 years of life, I've VERY SELDOM experienced any peace of mind and rest. Before I met with Dr. Braverman, I'd spent years on end racking my brain scouring the net in order to find what was possibly wrong with me, until I saw I was running in circle, and decided to seek medical help. Just to give any idea how bad my anxiety was severe at the time where I didn't know whether the arrythmias were either benign or malignant, just the cracks in the road felt when driving would nring about much anxiety as I wasn't sure at times whether it was a crack or a palpitation that I'd felt--this should give you a good idea how bad it was.



How does low blood sugar feel to you? How do you make this feeling go away? How do you know this is low blood sugar?
It's hard to tell, but I'll do my best to explain what It felt like and when. For years now in the late afternoon, more days than not, I'll start to feel sligthly confused round 3:00-3:30 in the PM. Confusion manifests in me as a difficulty thinking, and even to some extent with speech which gets a tad incoherent. On such occasions I took my BG, and found that 4 times out of 5, my BG is not low (round 90 mg/dl). However there have been times where It was low, and the symptoms felt then were like those described just above, but worst in severity. The few times it was low blood sugar was because I took a reading with the use of my glucometer. The lowest I got was round 54 mg/dl. When severe (which is very rare) having a snack will stabilise things in about 20 minutes. When not severe and when I fail to read low BG on the glucometer, I often will lie down for about 20 minutes, and then when I get up things I'm doing much better. When at those moments I feel i need to get some rest lying down, it's cause I'm literally mentally drained, and almost fall asleep once lied down.


Is there any other labs your doctor has done that you haven't posted yet?
When I get up this morning, cause it's 1;06 in the morning right now., I'll go over my labs printouts, and post the most recent ones, just to make sure all of them I have included in my thread.



Do you suffer from depression?

Dr. Braverman and my local primary care provider boh thinks I have dysthymia. I do not feel down in the dumps everyday, but I can never fully enjoy life as I should for reasons I mentioned about regarding anxiety and incessant worries. So I'm always somewhat down. Worth noting is that Dr. Braverman had prescribed me Tryptophan 1000 mg at bedtimes. I took 500 mg instead of 1000 mg (for fear of side effects from the Deprenyl sides I had), and 500 mg definately helped the low sex drive--not that much, but enough to really notice it. So far like I said any stimulant will make things worse for me, while calming substances most of the time produce the reverse beneficial effect such as theanine, St-John's wort etc....they all positively affect my sex drive. Siberian ginsenf which I took 4 days out of 7 last week, helped the sex drive too.


If I think of any other details I'll make sure to post it, as usual. Right now is not the best time for me to try and find important details as I'm sleepy.

Also feel free to ask any more questions, the more you ask the better you can help me.

Many thanks once more for the help provided..i sure appreciate it.

Best

 

[chip douglas]

My latest locally performed blood work :

DHEA-S : 11.6 ref. range : 4.0-16.3 umol/L

SHBG : 17.0 ref.range : 10-73 no units were mentioned.

Total Testosterone : 14.1 ref.range : 8.4-28.7 nmol/L

Bioavailable Testosterone : 6.0 ref.range : 2.0-14.0 nmol/L

FSH : 2 ref.range : 2-12 U/L

LH : 2 ref.range : 2-9 U/L


More test were performed even more recently, namely :

TSH
Calcium
Prolactin
urinary catecholamines
5HIAA
Free cortisol (urinary)

I have the results, but without the reference ranges, so I'll need to drop by the medical clinic, and have them give me a printout with the reference ranges this time. My doctor and the endo who requested the above tests, said that all was fine though, but still I want to have the reference range and post them results here for scrutiny.

Thanks

 

[chip douglas]

I also forgot to mention that blood cortisol AM and PM was also conducted.

 

[Legenden1999]

Scary... we have so many things in common...low hormones, panic attacs, mental confusion, heart arrythmias, less emotions, intolerance of stress, racing thoughts, spending tons of time searching the net for anwsers, etc.

Do you also feel drained from energy by 4pm ? Do you have mussletwitches/tics ? Do you get sick alot ? Are your eyes sensitive to light ?

I would really like to stay in contact with you in the future. Could you send me a PM with you email addy ?

Im thinking about starting deprenyl myself. Could you tell me some more about your experience ? how much you took ? if you felt any different etc.

BTW. did you by any chance ever take propecia ?

JH

 

[chip douglas]

Do you also feel drained from energy by 4pm ? Do you have mussletwitches/tics ? Do you get sick alot ? Are your eyes sensitive to light ?


Yes, I often feel drained by 4-5 PM, and feel like lying down. I do have muscle twitches (eyelid and arms mostly). Sick a lot, um nope, except that I sometimes have colds that last longer than they used to and they're often recurrent for a given period of time, but then I'm free of them colds for the whole winter. But aside from colds, nope I don't get sick often, and even when I do get colds I don't get sick a lot from them, but they linger.

My eyes are indeed somewhat sensitive to sunlight, but not to indoor lighting though.

About feeling drained, I'll provide you with a good practical example :

Me and my girlfriend went to her sister in law's this evening. Once there there were me, my gf, her sister, his boyfriend, and his boyfriend's cousin. At 11 o'clock I got up from the rocking chair cause I was getting really exhausted, and why ? It seems that when there's too much activity (people talking) for too long a time around me, I get drained both mentally and physically. Usually when drained in such a way, I'll feel like grabbing a bite. However when I got home, I brought the puter out of hibernation and checked my inbox. After 10 minutes of home quietness, I found the urge to eat went pretty much away, and I was feeling better. If there's too much people talking around me for too long a time, it seems to act as a stress to me, and then I'll get drained, hungry, slow on the upake and experience thinking difficulties, as well as short term memory problems, all of the latter relieved when the stressor is no more.

As far as sunlight sensitivity, I indeed tend to squint more than I think I should at times.

I'll hit the hay now, and I'm barely able to type straight.

Thanks

 

[chip douglas]

Do you also feel drained from energy by 4pm ? Do you have mussletwitches/tics ? Do you get sick alot ? Are your eyes sensitive to light ?


Yes, I often feel drained by 4-5 PM, and feel like lying down. I do have muscle twitches (eyelid and arms mostly). Sick a lot, um nope, except that I sometimes have colds that last longer than they used to and they're often recurrent for a given period of time, but then I'm free of them colds for the whole winter. But aside from colds, nope I don't get sick often, and even when I do get colds I don't get sick a lot from them, but they linger.

My eyes are indeed somewhat sensitive to sunlight, but not to indoor lighting though.

About feeling drained, I'll provide you with a good practical example :

Me and my girlfriend went to her sister in law's this evening. Once there there were me, my gf, her sister, his boyfriend, and his boyfriend's cousin. At 11 o'clock I got up from the rocking chair cause I was getting really exhausted, and why ? It seems that when there's too much activity (people talking) for too long a time around me, I get drained both mentally and physically. Usually when drained in such a way, I'll feel like grabbing a bite. However when I got home, I brought the puter out of hibernation and checked my inbox. After 10 minutes of home quietness, I found the urge to eat went pretty much away, and I was feeling better. If there's too much people talking around me for too long a time, it seems to act as a stress to me, and then I'll get drained, hungry, slow on the upake and experience thinking difficulties, as well as short term memory problems, all of the latter relieved when the stressor is no more.

As far as sunlight sensitivity, I indeed tend to squint more than I think I should at times.

I'll hit the hay now, and I'm barely able to type straight.

Thanks

 

[chip douglas]

Sorry for the double post, I really thought it didn't go through the first time, as the page posting page displayed a fatal error.

 

[Legenden1999]

I send you a mail, summing up some of my issues that relates to you.

Maybe Marianco could write a comment about if he thinks its possible you are suffering from adrenal fatigue even though your saliva test indicates somewhat normal adrenal function???

BTW. I too get brainfogged when Im in a room with to many people (more than a few). I think this is a symptom of adrenal fatigue too.

JH

 

[chip douglas]

I admit it would be great if Dr. Marianco would chime in with some thoughts.

 

[1cc]

Last summer I had some Deprenyl as an attempt to alleviate the sex drive, but it didn't help at all, as I stopped the drug cold turkey. I knew I shouldn't do that, but risked taking the chance just the same. End result, I ended in the ER 4 times suffering with panic attacks, then after the fourth times, the drug had pretty much cleared my system, and the panic attacks were almost a thing of the past--at least I never ever experienced anything alike them after that point.

Deprenyl increases Dopamine. I suspect that your dopamine is already very high because your prolactin is so low.

I'm prone to anxiety. In my mind things can never be simple and therefore my mind is VERy RARELY resting. Racing thoughts are common to me. For instance, whenever I feel fine/well, then I'll start having anxiety, cause it doesn't feel right to me to not worry over something. I feel if I don't worry about my health, that something bad could happen, or that it wouldn't be responsible of me to not think about doing the best i can about my health. So this keeps my mind in a constant state of searching for the root cause of my health issue--the most annoying and prominent one is the low sex drive.

Sounds like you might have Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Have you ever tried Xanax or Buspar to treat this?

Prolonged anxiety can wear out your Adrenals. So perhaps your initial problem was anxiety, but now its also affected your Adrenals so that you are now even less able to handle your anxiety.

So far like I said any stimulant will make things worse for me, while calming substances most of the time produce the reverse beneficial effect such as theanine, St-John's wort etc....they all positively affect my sex drive.

Stimulants will worsen your Adrenal symptoms as well as your Anxiety. Im pretty sure that anything calming, that reduces your anxiety, will increase your libido.

Siberian ginsenf which I took 4 days out of 7 last week, helped the sex drive too.

Siberian Ginseng supports the Adrenals.

More test were performed even more recently, namely :

TSH
Calcium
Prolactin
urinary catecholamines
5HIAA
Free cortisol (urinary)

I would like to see the Prolactin results to confirm the previous low result. This would confirm your high Dopamine. I would also like to see the Free cortisol (urinary). All with reference ranges.

I also forgot to mention that blood cortisol AM and PM was also conducted.

Blood cortisol is not reliable, but post it anyway.

 

[chip douglas]

Deprenyl increases Dopamine. I suspect that your dopamine is already very high because your prolactin is so low.


It'd confirm the BEAM (Brain Electrical Activity Mapping) performed at Pathmedical, which showed elevated brain DA. DA is measured in Microvolts, and mine came out at : 9.3 mV. That test mesures the P300 wave voltage. Since prolactin is controled by DA, the low prolactin is pretty much confirmation of the BEAM.



Sounds like you might have Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Have you ever tried Xanax or Buspar to treat this?


Nope, not yet. Dr, Braverman had prescribed 0.5 Mg Klonopin at bedtime and 10 Mg Paxil in the morning. I've objected taking Paxil for fear that it would further lower my already low sex drive. As far as Klonopin, it's long half life makes it less likely to cause any dependency, at least that's what I was told. Generalized anxiety disorder ; it's something that's crossed my mind a few times so far. Braverman didn't mention anything about it, but then, dysthymia, generalized anxiety disorder, all have things in common. I'm starting to think that in someone who doesn't suffer from anxiety disorder, benzos or anxiety medication would likely reduce sex drive, while it may have the reverse positive effect on someone having much anxiety, that is helping to re-establish a more normal libido.


Prolonged anxiety can wear out your Adrenals. So perhaps your initial problem was anxiety, but now its also affected your Adrenals so that you are now even less able to handle your anxiety.


This makes a *lot* of sense indeed.



Stimulants will worsen your Adrenal symptoms as well as your Anxiety. Im pretty sure that anything calming, that reduces your anxiety, will increase your libido.


Your're right on the money, as : Theanine, dandelion, St-John's wort, grape seed extracts, colostrum (probably because alpha-lactalbumin is rich in tryptophan), american ginseng, siberian ginseng, are ALL supplements that have helped me. Now the chief reason why I stopped taking them is cause I first wanted to know what it is I've had before I'd start treating myself with herbs and supplements. The above supplements have indeed one point in common, they all exert a soothing, settling effect on the CNS, in turn calming the SNS. All of the above substances have helped increase my libido.


Siberian Ginseng supports the Adrenals.


I took about 200 Mg/day for 4 days last week, and my erections were much firmer and the libido picked up to some extent too. Overall I liked the effect. I stopped taking it as I've to get FT3/FT4 tested, and sure don't want to skew the results.


I would like to see the Prolactin results to confirm the previous low result. This would confirm your high Dopamine. I would also like to see the Free cortisol (urinary). All with reference ranges.



I'll drop by the clinic tomorrow, and will post them results in the evening.



Blood cortisol is not reliable, but post it anyway.


Will do.


Thanks 1cc

 

[chip douglas]

Oh btw, I recieved Dr James Wilson's book this morning--looks like a very interesting book. I'll start reading tomorrow, as I'm on vacation for yet another two weeks.

 

[Legenden1999]

Deprenyl increases Dopamine. I suspect that your dopamine is already very high because your prolactin is so low.

I would like to know if low prolactin always rule out low dopamine ?

According to the tests in braverman's book Im low in dopamine, but all my 3 tests of prolactin came back low-normal.

What gives ?

JH