symptoms of low vs high cortisol

[alice111]

does anyone have a link to a source, or perhaps their own personal experience with high and low cortisol??
I am finding it very confusing the sources I have found such as STTM - many of the symptoms of low cortiol are also ones of high.. so how do you know???
obviously testing would be the most accurate way, but I am currently on cortef and very confused about what to do .. i dont know if my symptoms are low - and so I need to increase.. or high and i need to decrease... :s
help appreciated!

 

[drob31]

Here's how I have come to understand it:

Low cortisol is like high cortisol because high cortisol can make cells resistant to all hormones, including cortisol itself. This means with high cortisol, you get some resistance at the cellular level, which would theoretically make it feel allot like low cortisol. High cortisol can also cause cellular resistance to other hormones such as testosterone, progesterone, and estrogen. Cortisol is needed for thyroid hormone to be accessed by the cell. Too little and it makes you hypothyroid. Too much and it again, makes you hypothyroid. Hypothyroid is probably what causes most of the symptoms, but the cells would theoretically also be deficient in all hormones. This is why high cortisol can feel allot like low cortisol.

That is my current understanding. It has taken allot of time to understand it.

The question is, why is cortisol high or low?

 

[SDSue]

I wish I could credit the source, but unfortunatley I took a screen shot of this because I thought it summarized cortisol well. If anyone knows the source, please add. (It may even be from PR?)

 

[drob31]

I wish I could credit the source, but unfortunatley I took a screen shot of this because I thought it summarized cortisol well. If anyone knows the source, please add. (It may even be from PR?)View attachment 9342

This is from an article on t-nation called "the truth about adrenal fatigue."

http://www.t-nation.com/free_online...nce_nutrition/the_truth_about_adrenal_fatigue

I don't agree with the recommendations as far as PS. As has been mentioned on here, seriphos is more effective than PS, and soy derived PS has never been proven to be effective as has the bovine source, which isn't used anymore.

 

[Peyt]

Thanks everyone so much for your contribution to this post,
When I had my cortisol measured, it was abnormally high in the morning, normal during the day and then below normal at night! Furthermore, when I take PC it improves my mood, and I am smiling all day but then I gain weight easily on PC (especially around stomach and breast area) and get tired fast.... on the other hand when I take PS I feel focused and lose weight (after a couple of weeks of usage) but become agitated and angry easily(opposite of when i take PC)

This is always been puzzling to me until I saw this post and the section SDSue has posted which has "Abnormal Circadian Rythm" ..... Anyone can explain what this is? I am real curious to know if perhaps this is what I am dealing with and maybe I need to take PC and PS together.... or perhaps look at trying some Alpha GPC and PS as mentioned there.... Thanks so much for educating me in advance.