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high cortisol at night???

WoolPippi

Senior Member
Messages
556
Location
Netherlands
Yeah, I had cortisol-insomnia for years. Not as bad as your zombie-nights though :(
I'd fall into bed, wake up after a few hours, be ALERT and AWAKE for about two hours and then fall asleep again and cannot get out of bed afterwards. I figured it was a cortisol rush. Had it for years, from childhood on. Before ME.

Over the summer I fixed it and here's how I did that:
  • I spend fewer hours in bed for sleeping. Lights out from 23 till 6.30. With another 45 minutes just laying in bed with bright lights on in the morning to start up (aka waiting for the HC to kick in). These hours are a remedy for sleep, not a result. I did it via Sleep Restriction Therapy but this is a dangerous therapy when you have ME.
  • Low tyramine diet (because of MAO A gene) ad lots of vit D (because faulty receptors)
  • Got rid of the wiredness. During day as well as night. With valerian root and cognitive behaviour/NLP techniques and not eating anything that startles the body. Basically I eat chicken soup all day every day... and relax my body all the time.
  • Taking serious downtime during the day. Horizontal rests for an hour, twice, at least.
Although this 3 to 5 insomnia doesn't have a psychological cause one can influence the body's stress system with psychological techniques. For about 50% I say. The rest comes from eradicating anything that triggers the cortisol/noradrenaline response.

For me that means earplugs, warm bed, safe surroundings, Mg + Li + Valerian root + Echineaforce + Progesteron before bed, no raw veggies during the day, no MIL from hell in my life, no career, no big meals, no insuline spikes, no nutmeg and no vanilla flavouring. Your milage will vary but basically the weirdest thing can set you off. No point in arguing with your body about it ("really? no veggies? They are healthy!" "Yeah ... but no. Here, have some stomach cramps. At night.")

Stress at night is strongly related to stress during the day. Can't fix the first without addressing the last. I snapped out of it with Gupta Amydala techniques and now I can manage daytime stresses better. They wash over me and I guide my body back to ease when the stressor is gone.
I also take 20 mg Hydrocortizone during the day and 100 mg MPO Progesterone at night so my body doesn't have to scramble for anti-stress hormones. This has brought much relaxation over my body.

Here's my timeline for this year:
- April: 45% healthy + insomnia
May: start 100 mg Progesterone each night (it's not a sex hormone) + Gupta Amygdala
June: 65% healthy (!!wtf?) + insomnia
July - Oct: Sleep restriction therapy
Dec: sleep pattern settled, sleep through nearly every night. 85% healthy (yay!!)

PS not saying Sleep Restriction Therapy is the answer. It's dangerous when your body is weak. I had the HC to back me up and have been healing my body for years so had a robust base. Also have a very sensitive body so can monitor wether something's good very quick and in small doses.
 
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WoolPippi

Senior Member
Messages
556
Location
Netherlands
oh... and if you didn't think I was a handknitted weirdo enough: in the city I sleep with a hat made of silverlined fabric. It repels high energy electro magnetic fields such as the numerous wifi networks around here. It works for me, be it placebo or not.

btw, I'm also a down to earth engineer. I try out a lot of things and follow results, no matter how illogical they seem at first.
 

A zombie

Senior Member
Messages
197
mood cure says to take the PS 4-6 hours before you have high cortisol.
I did take it this AM.
We shall see if it helps!
yes my insomnia is very extreme :(
Lots of good advice Wool!!!
 

A zombie

Senior Member
Messages
197
ugh, so i tried the PS int eh am and it didn't work.
mood cure says to take 4-6 hours before the high cort so i tried that yesterday.
Around 5 pm last night i was feeling weka int eh knees , i think that is a low cort symptom for me so i took 2.5 HC and felt better...
I feel asp on couch for maybe 45 mins to an hour.Went to bed felt like i couldn't get to sleep, took several PS , think i fell asleep and felt like i was JOLTED awake , like bitterly my body jolted . I had a racing heart at this time too.
I had to resort to loraz and zanax. My heart raced till the combo kicked in... so for a good 20 mins.
I'm now wondering if i might be LOW cort at night.
Unfortunatley since i'm on HC right now there is no simple way for me to find out as i can't get off the HC as it makes me feel great in the AM.
Tonight i guess i can try a small dose at bedtime.
All i know is this has to get resolved. Kids have been off school for the last two weeks so i've been sleeping in but come monday its back to the grind :(
I'm so frustrated.
I feel my AF has never been this bad. I do awful in the evenings. AWFUL. SO maybe it is low cort.
 

heapsreal

iherb 10% discount code OPA989,
Messages
10,089
Location
australia (brisbane)
ugh, so i tried the PS int eh am and it didn't work.
mood cure says to take 4-6 hours before the high cort so i tried that yesterday.
Around 5 pm last night i was feeling weka int eh knees , i think that is a low cort symptom for me so i took 2.5 HC and felt better...
I feel asp on couch for maybe 45 mins to an hour.Went to bed felt like i couldn't get to sleep, took several PS , think i fell asleep and felt like i was JOLTED awake , like bitterly my body jolted . I had a racing heart at this time too.
I had to resort to loraz and zanax. My heart raced till the combo kicked in... so for a good 20 mins.
I'm now wondering if i might be LOW cort at night.
Unfortunatley since i'm on HC right now there is no simple way for me to find out as i can't get off the HC as it makes me feel great in the AM.
Tonight i guess i can try a small dose at bedtime.
All i know is this has to get resolved. Kids have been off school for the last two weeks so i've been sleeping in but come monday its back to the grind :(
I'm so frustrated.
I feel my AF has never been this bad. I do awful in the evenings. AWFUL. SO maybe it is low cort.


I generally take it at night when i take my normal sleep meds just before bed. But might need to experiment some with timing and dosing. I tend to use it for a few days at a time when sleep goes right off ie sleep cycle
 

picante

Senior Member
Messages
829
Location
Helena, MT USA
i'm thinking its high!a ew nights ago i fell asleep for like two hours and then woke two hours later with a pounding heart and couldn't get bk to sleep without loraz
I discovered that when my heart pounds at rest, I need potassium. I've been taking lots of potassium on Freddd's protocol, but it took me a while to realize that was one of the deficiency symptoms. Like you, I thought I needed to lower my cortisol (and sometimes I still need to, like after exercise).
 

A zombie

Senior Member
Messages
197
my latest cortisol is high in the AM, way over range , then low , right at bottom of range, then lowish and at bedtime normalish.
still having major issues with sleep.
My dr wanted me to try phosphatidyl serine, but i do have seriphos here too.
I'm thinking i need the seriphos in the AM and then something to boost me at 11a and 3pm???
 

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A zombie

Senior Member
Messages
197
mood cure says to take the PS 4-6 hours before you have high cortisol.
I did take it this AM.
We shall see if it helps!
yes my insomnia is very extreme :(
Lots of good advice Wool!!!
so if mood cure says to take 4-6 hours before cortisol goes high , i should be popping this int he middle of the night???
 
Messages
45
Seriphos (phosphorylated serine) is very effective for normalizing cortisol levels, but you have to take it in the morning. My cortisol was very high at night several years ago causing severe insomnia and I started taking Seriphos and it helped almost immediately. It was trial and error to get the correct dose, but I ended up taking 8 capsules in divided doses in the morning on an empty stomach (4 capsules first thing before breakfast and 4 mid-morning). After some months I noticed I was getting extra tired and realized my cortisol was going too low and cut back. I now take 2 a day as a maintenance dose. A good place to buy it which has the best price and free fast shipping is professionalsupplementcenter.com

And again, it's important to take it in the morning. It doesn't make you tired during the day but it did calm me down. I think halcyon is referring to phosphatidyl serine (PS), not phosphorylated serine.

Also, you might try niacin at night. It sensitizes or activates the GABA receptors - it really helped me a lot with sleep. I found I had to take the kind that makes you flush - non-flush niacin and niacinamide did nothing to help with sleep. And don't get long-acting niacin, that's the kind that is associated with liver damage. I've learned to live with the flush and actually it's much less than when I first started taking it (and often I don't flush at all any more). I take 500 mg. with dinner and then in the middle of the night I take an additional 300 mg. of niacin.

Also, you might try l-theanine instead of GABA. The brain makes GABA from l-theanine and l-theanine crosses the blood-brain barrier better than GABA.

Some amino acids I've recently started taking which also help with sleep are glycine and inositol. You can buy glycine capsules but another way to get it is to take plain gelatin which is very high in glycine. When I first took both of these supplements (separately) I had a rather strong detox reaction. They are both involved in Phase II liver detoxification. For some reason though I can tolerate them now with nor problem but I would would try one at a time to see how you react. I think most people could probably take them with no problem. And I've also read that choline and inositol together help with sleep. I already take lecithin for memory so have not added in choline.

And of course make sure you are taking enough magnesium, very important for sleep. You can take it up to bowel tolerance.

Do you know if Seriphos affects serotonin? I didn't find any info. I'm extremely sensitive to anything that raises serotonin. I suffer from high cortisol symptoms and could really use some relief.
 

Mary

Moderator Resource
Messages
17,334
Location
Southern California
@nostalgic - I don't know if Seriphos affects serotonin though I've never heard of it doing so. I was initially told to take it at night, but taking it at night made me feel horrible - it gave me a weird sort of insomnia, I slept terribly. Somehow I decided to try it in the morning (I don't remember why I did this) and it was entirely different. It calmed me down during the day (though not drugged and did not make me tired, just calmer) and then helped a lot with sleep at night.