Adrenal Stress or Adrenal Insufficiency?
Are you not sure if you have adrenal stress or adrenal insufficiency? Adrenal insufficiency is rare. The most common cause is Addison’s Disease and it only affects about 5 people per every million.
This risk is real, but the circumstances in which it applies are rare.
Do you know how a message gets distorted over the course of a game of telephone? That has happened in functional medicine.
If a patient has untreated Addison’s Disease and untreated hypothyroidism, they need to first stabilize their glucocorticoid levels with replacement medication. Once they have done so, they may then proceed with thyroid medications as appropriate.
This almost never happens. Both issues cause significant symptoms. Both can be missed at early stages but this concern does not apply to early stages. To have someone let both go unchecked for some length of time is nearly impossible.
The idea has expanded to include anyone with any concerns regarding their thyroid or adrenal health.
A large percentage of adults have suboptimal or subclinical hypothyroidism. Many of them are put on thyroid medications, even though they don’t help in these situations. Nearly all of these same people have symptoms that can be ascribed to ‘adrenal fatigue’.
The risk is that a well-meaning practitioner can tell someone like that about the order – you must treat the adrenals first!
The popular idea is that ‘adrenal fatigue’ is the root cause of thyroid issues. If one fails to treat this root cause the disease will only progress.