With fibromyalgia, you’re already at a low energy state anyway. Your metabolism is oftentimes compromised from Lothar Atwood for sleep medications, you may be taking just the oxidative stress that your body’s under from different toxins that you have accumulated over the years. But when your get up and go has got up and went, what you start to see is that stress becomes more magnified and you see that little things that didn’t used to bother you, really bother you. Loud noises, bright lights, the changes in the weather, any kind of stress, any kind of stimulation, real or imagined, can really set you off into a cloud or flare. Some individuals with fibromyalgia have lost their ability to handle stress to such a severe degree that they find they can’t even go out of the house. They become basically like hermits. Their energy is so low that oftentimes they have to decide what’s the one thing they’re going to do that day. Sometimes it’s that they have decide what one day of the week or they’re going to get a shower because after they get a shower or get cleaned up, that’s it.
They’re done for the day. And that’s not exaggerating. Those of you that are watching this, you there’s many of you that can identify with that or certainly have days where you feel that way, where you do one thing and that’s it, you’re done. A big reason for that is your body’s not able to handle that stress. You’ve depleted your stress coping chemicals, you depleted serotonin and dopamine and norepinephrine, pantothenic acid, magnesium, vitamin C, these chemicals that your body needs to be able to operate correctly. But when you develop adrenal fatigue now you are in this vicious cycle too, where stress becomes more magnified. You get under stress and you and the stress is magnified, and you can generally are depleting the chemicals and hormones that your body needs to be able to handle the stress. One way to know if you have adrenal fatigue is a self test or actually share two of them with you today. So one of them is an easy test to do where you take your blood pressure lying down and then you stand up and take your blood pressure again within 30 seconds of standing up. Now you want to make sure when you take your blood pressure, when you stand up, you want to take it in the left arm and it should be out in front of you perpendicular at heart level.
So you take your blood pressure line down, left arm, right arm closest to the heart. And what you should see is your blood pressure, you know, is 120 over 81, ten over 70, whatever it is. But now after you take that, you stand up and you take it again standing up and what you should see is that top number of that systolic number should go up by ten points to have a reason. That is, is your adrenal gland should be releasing norepinephrine or adrenaline to get more blood and oxygen to your cells in your muscles and to your brain. So you don’t feel dizzy when you stand up and you’ve got the support of your supporting muscles. But if your blood pressure drops, that’s a sign of adrenal fatigue. Now, another way you can test this if you don’t have a blood pressure cuff is go into a dark bathroom, some lights off in the bathroom. You cover one eye while you’re looking in the mirror and you shine a pin like a little flashlight into your eye. And what you should see is the pupil should actually get smaller, should constrict. If it dilates, if it gets larger within 30 seconds, that’s a sign of adrenal fatigue. Now, these are really basic ways to see if your adrenal glands are at optimal levels or if they’re able to handle stress or not ideal. You’d have a for sample test to show you how well or how poorly your cortisol is being released throughout the day. So cortisol, the stress coping hormone is at its highest first thing in the morning. And as the day goes on, it goes down and you want your cortisol level to be at its lowest at bedtime because if it’s elevated, it suppresses your natural sleep hormone. Melatonin, what a lot of people will witness, you know, what they’ll see is that the cortisol levels will be low in the morning and then throughout the day it’ll stake out low and then it spikes up at bedtime because they get their second wind. How many of you have a problem with tired all day and then getting closer to bedtime, you kind of get a little boost of energy.
Maybe not a lot, but just enough that allows you to be able to do some things that maybe you hadn’t been able to do during the day, or maybe you’ve been waiting till late in the evening to have that quiet time. But all the kids have gone to bed or whatever where you can actually have some quiet time. So you kind of push through. Maybe you’re tired and you push through that to stay awake so that you have some alone time for whatever reason. Right. And by doing a four sample cortisol test, you can see what the level is first thing in the morning, what it is mid-morning, what is late afternoon, and what it is a better. And then once you know what that graph looks like, you can then strategically start to correct any problems with this pattern. Most people, fibromyalgia I mentioned, are going to be low in cortisol first thing in the morning. And typically what you see is that people would like to skip breakfast. So you want those kind of people that doesn’t like to eat breakfast, maybe not hungry first thing in the morning. And oftentimes that’s because what you’re doing is by fast setting, you’re raising your cortisol level. So even though it’s really low, you’ve found that if you don’t eat breakfast, your cortisol level will stay up higher for a little bit longer.
And many of you actually get even nauseated thinking about eating so you don’t eat breakfast. Now, some of you are practicing intermittent fasting. It’s a very healthy thing to do. But a lot of you don’t eat because of this adrenal fatigue issue. And you’re trying to keep your cortisol level spiked up in the morning to give you a little more energy. But as soon as you eat, you start to crash. And one of the things that is really helpful in preventing and helping you get out of fibro flares is fixing this adrenal fatigue issue, because this is what really starts or initiates the fibro flare for many of you. You’ve witnessed this. You’ve had maybe you’ve had a good day, maybe was the first good day in a long time. Maybe you got finally got a good night’s sleep. Whatever it is, you have a good day. And because you’re feeling better, you commit to going out with friends or you maybe do a little gardening or maybe stay a little extra at work if you’re still working or whatever it is. But you overdo it over and above what you normally do. And then you have a fibro flare, right? You have the symptoms are magnified and it may be so bad that you’re in bed for two or three days because you overdid it.
But the fibro flares generated because you’ve lost your stamina and resistance to stress, stress is magnified and it really generates unwanted health problems and only biochemical physiological reactions in your body that then cause your symptoms of fibromyalgia be worse. So big key in helping you overcome fibromyalgia and preventing those fibro flares is to fix your adrenal fatigue. So over-the-counter supplements that allow you to do that. And some of the speakers today, we’re going to talk a little bit about some things you can do to boost your stamina, reduce your stress, to help you have more resiliency to stress. But I would encourage you to do this little self-test to see do you have adrenal fatigue?
And my guess is you probably do. So there’s the blood pressure test and then there’s a test where you shine the pin, like in your eye while looking in a mirror. Remember, if your pupil constricts or stays that way, you’re good. If it if it dilates, gets larger. That’s a sign of adrenal fatigue. And you need to really start working on this issue of too much stress and not having the stress coping hormones or chemicals that you need to deal with that stress. Ideally, you get tested, but this is a just a simple little way to see if you’re have this condition called adrenal fatigue, which most people with fibromyalgia do. So I look forward to sharing some more information with you over the next couple of days of the summit. But this is your homework. Do your homework and see what you find out and self-tests to see if you have a trainer. Fatigue.
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