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[paisley]

Has anyone come into the menopause not feeling good?
I ask because I had PND in 1991 for 7 years & it left me with a low grade anxiety & occasional depression. Not bad enough for medication but there in the background. February 2009 started peri menopause & at first nothing changed but by the October of that year all the awful symptoms came, anxiety, depression etc bus much worse. I had a full hysterectomy in May 2011 & still suffering greatly. Tried every HRT there is & sometimes they work for a bit & then not. After a lot of researching I am wondering if it is because my adrenals weren't in a good way coming into to this & until I address these no amount of HRT is going to work. I don't always think it is just about the HRT. Menopause puts so much extra pressure on the adrenals. This is were oestrogen comes from when we have none or our ovaries are failing. High Cortisol which gives us those horrible anxious feelings & low blood sugar comes from the adrenals. Stress lowers the adrenals too. I think if they aren't functioning properly when entering the menopause we are already at a major disadvantage to cope. I am coming to think that our bodies are like an orchestra & everything has to be in tune to work properly.  Has anyone addressed this & felt better?

[Donna-paul]

I totally agree with you paisley and wish maybe they could look into the adrenals. I got Pnd and then have M.e after my son 26 years ago and as most know there's no cure. I did at cortisol test and it showed low cortisol all them years ago and now my journey into the menopause I did another test and it shows high cortisol levels! My biggest symptom being my body in the fight or flight and having Adrenalin when having hot flushes and waking in a startled state for no reason. Low dose hrt has helped a bit but I know if my adrenals were normal it would be so much more easier and the aniexty may go completely.

[Shadyglade]

People don't realise how important adrenal gland problems are to general and mental health. I included GPs in this.

Very interesting post paisley.

[dangermouse]

Although this video is primarily about Keto, it explains a lot about adrenals and menopause and what the body needs and is very short.

https://youtu.be/u2jYF8GD7Hg

[dangermouse]

This one explains why we get the symptoms of hot flushes etc:

https://youtu.be/fJ4CX9_soQU

Although he is a bit presumptuous about HRT causing cancer and strokes!

[Conolly]

Hello ladies,


I agree, although established treatments are for deficient or overactive adrenals, usually a congenital defect or caused by tumors. The so called 'adrenal fatigue' is still a mystery. There are many websites talking about it but the scientific evidence is scarce. I am fascinated by this subject. What happens to the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis physiology during menopause? Surely the tremendous drop in hormone production by the ovaries will impact the adrenals but there are so few studies relating the HPA axis to the female reproductive system at this stage, most of them are about fertility and contraception. There are studies on chronic depression, bipolar disorder and chronic fatigue syndrome, it's about time to include menopause on the agenda.


I have been tested for blood cortisol a number of times, always within normal range, but I don't think this is enough. I think the hypothalamic and pituitary hormones (CRH and ACTH) should be tested in menopause, just like TSH is tested along with T4 and T3 to diagnose hypo/hyperthyroidism. DHEA is another adrenal hormone that has caught the attention of scientists a while ago, but the studies have come to a halt until recently. Meanwhile, a lot of DHEA is being sold OTC worldwide with mixed results. I have taken it for 6 months during perimenopause (I was willing to try anything, including suicide) and I had some interesting results: an increase in vaginal lubrication and libido. It didn't touch anxiety, fatigue and hot flushes though.

Thank you for the links, dangermouse. I'm going to watch them now.


Well, I liked the videos (and the 'Dr' lol), he's certainly making some money with his formula, but everyone has to survive, right? I agree with the basic information and advice he provides, not sure if I would buy his formula though. I have recently bought some vegetarian Omega 3 (from algae) to try to decrease my cholesterol and triglycerides levels. Fingers crossed.


Are you still on the keto diet, dangermouse?

Conolly X

[Hurdity]

I replied to this earlier and I think there were others that got deleted in the forum back-up but I had saved mine because I was trying to post when weird things were happening!

I haven't looked into this recently but I haven't read anything that suggests adrenal fatigue is a condition that needs treating - with supplements anyway.

As for those videos – sorry dangermouse – but what a load of twaddle that guy talked!!!

The first one - was just a long winded way to say we need to stabilise our blood sugar levels more when we are peri-menopausal and beyond and suggested ways of doing it - well we all know that don't we girls?!

As for the second one - words fail me!!! It really was beyond belief and patronising. Yeah right -flushes, sweats and vaginal dryness are not “normal” responses to menopause (cue his silly fingers doing inverted commas), just a malfunction of the adrenals – so just support the adrenals before menopause by taking all my supplements and you'll be fine.    As for the strokes and cancer caused by HRT – well words fail me!!!

Paisley – sorry to hear you are not feeling right still and yes I agree the adrenal glands as with all our organs – are very important but other than the two conditions causing too little and too much cortisol (Addisons and Cushings) I don't know of any way of testing for other less than optimal functioning along the spectrum so that this can be measured and treated. As far as I understand – the best way to “support the adrenals” is as always to eat a very good diet full of natural unprocessed foods, get plenty of exercise. Reduce stress and alcohol and get plenty of sleep. Happy to be educated further if there is something up-to-date on this. Did you have your ovaries removed when you had your total hysterectomy? If so then you would have been put into surgical menopause which makes it more challenging to stabilise your hormones subsequently. Are you still taking HRT or testosterone?  Are you managing to stabilise your blood sugar with diet? I hope you manage to find a way forward to feel better – but I would suggest to persevere with HRT, add in testosterone, and try to adopt all the  diet and lifestyle measures you can for optimal adrenal (and general) health. 

In your position I would adopt all the healthy diet and lifestyle options that you can, perservere with HRT giving each type a good length of time (after all you don't have to take progesterone which is a very big bonus and should help to make it easier to sort out the right dose..), if you have no ovaries ( or even if you have) think about adding testosterone, and take it from there. I do hope you are able to find a way forward to feel better in the short and long term. All the best.

Hurdity x

[Shadyglade]

Interesting videos ladies. I have always felt that meno symptoms should not be looked at in isolation to other body functions and influences.

Food for thought.

[dangermouse]

Yes I only came across them yesterday, I do think that there must be a reason why some women suffer and others don't and, as the adrenals take over when the ovaries pack up, this does make sense to me.

It's the first time I've heard a proper explanation for hot flushes etc. and I suspect he made them before it was proven that HRT was safe.

Hey, Conolly, I haven't been doing the Keto diet but I may revisit it (after Christmas!), hence my discovering more about how to make it work with meno and I also came across a pre-alkaline diet that you do before Keto to help the body adapt more quickly, as I do have a lot of rubbish stored in my fat cells and cellulite that always pops out and overwhelms me whenever I try to burn fat!

I know most of these guys will have some supplements that they also promote but that doesn't affect their credibility if they also have free info that helps.

I personally do believe that HRT (including my progesterone cream) is a sticking plaster approach and I would prefer to get my body functioning correctly as with all the women who don't suffer through meno, especially as I have aunts in their mid 80s (who've never taken HRT) who have endless energy compared to me!

[Shadyglade]

My son lost 2 stone on Keto.

[Conolly]

Hello Dangermouse,


Do you think that maybe women who were on the pill until their late 50's could be somehow 'protected' against the perimenopause roller coaster?


Conolly X

[dangermouse]

I was on the pill until early 40s (for about 20 years) and always felt strange whenever I tired to stop it. I think now it was silent migraines.

It helped me 3 years ago again to stop the volatility but then the surges still poked through and now it definitely wouldn't be enough to control my cycle!

[paisley]

Sorry my post got deleted yesterday for some reason. I know a lot of doctors say adrenal fatigue doesn't exist but how do we explain the high cortisol levels when we are anxious & the surges of Adrenalin which as the name says comes from the Adrenals. If these are the main producer of oestrogen after our ovaries fail & we have anxiety before we go into menopause it stands to reason we aren't going to fair well. I still don't think the HRT will work on these women until we address this underlining cause. We can call it adrenal fatigue, high cortisol, panic whatever it is still the same thing. Dr Lam writes some very good articles on this. I don't believe everything he says ie : we need more progesterone because I am intolerant to it but he does have some good articles.

[Shadyglade]

Our GP definitely accepts adrenal fatigue and has treated a family member for it.  It takes a while for new consepts to take hold and I'm sure, if there is more research, it will become more mainstream as a treatable condition.

[dangermouse]

I'm pretty sure it's measurable too as it shows up in your ratio of potassium to sodium amongst others.

I studied under Dr Larry Wilson several years ago (as I was going to introduce hair mineral analysis to my practice) and my levels showed I was in the ‘alarm phase' of adrenal stress. I used tiny amounts of vitamins and minerals to try to gently rebalance, which did make me feel a lot better for a while, but the nutritionist I was assigned to thought there was something more going on with me as my levels were so outrageous. He suggested cutting out all sugar as well but I didn't try that until years later and had stopped the vits and testing then.

The problem with asking MD doctors' advice on nutritional healing is that they only study disease and not health, so they only know about drastic problems with the adrenals like Addisons. I think most would agree though that being nutritionally balanced will keep you in better health.