I think it's time for me to take a deep dive into the adrenal hormones rather than solely concentrate on the sex hormones where success is still eluding me.
I have trouble absorbing estradiol despite taking large amounts 4-5 pumps estrogel (patches were a total failure) - and have been recommended to reach plasma levels of 600-800 for my particular symptoms (chronic fatigue and acute fear and anxiety).
For ages my blood levels were really low - 100-200 ish then after many months of a high dose they finally increased to about 500 and I had moments, sometimes hours of even a handful of days of feeling semi-human which seemed miraculous.
But after maintaining that regime, 3 months later I felt worse, had my own tests done as was between hospital clinic appointments, and lo and behold my plasma estradiol has plummeted again by about 200 pmol (I never thought this would happen so quickly).
I can't really go much higher with estrogel dose and also have to watch my endometrium as I don't take much progesterone (10 days monthly pv). What is certain is that when my blood levels were at their highest I felt better (or less bad) than I have felt in ages but my body isn't sustaining absorption.
I also take regular testogel and absorb almost nothing of it (SHBG remains high which impedes absorption of T). No idea if there's a connection but I also don't 'absorb' food in a sense as my weight is very low and I definitely don't have an ED and eat what seems to me a healthy mediterranean diet with lots of good fats, not huge amounts of protein but fairly regular eggs, fish, nuts and seeds. The only time my weight crept up a few grams (though not nearly enough) was when my plasma estradiol was at 500, then, as my E2 fell so did my weight.
Am wondering if I should take a detour and look at testing cortisol and dhea-s. I think there is only one lab in the UK that does the saliva test at four points during the day, Medichecks do test DHEA but only one daily sample of cortisol so that's no good.
Thyroid numbers normal though I haven't had the deep dive tests some say are necessary.
Also very hard to find a practitioner for guidance - official medicine doesn't recognise adrenal insufficiency apart from Addison's and I don't want to end up with some quack (and money is a consideration, my meno clinic is NHS not private)
My worry is that even if tests unearth wonky cortisol ( I would guess it's too high at night and very low in the day) and/or low DHEA, there's not much I can do considering that I look after my diet, do regular exercise and meditation and also supplement with some adaptogens like ashawaghanda as well as vits b, c, d, and magnesium and iron (my serum vit d and ferritin also tanked despite alternate day supplementation since forever).
Perhaps some DHEA supplementation would be the only thing I haven't tried.
Any thought appreciated - I think Marchlove knows a lot about these things?
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Topic: Cortisol-dhea- adrenals and hormones (Read 719 times)