| Adrenal Health: Your Family Jewels |
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If I were to describe my focus and my expertise in one word it would be psychoneuroimmunology. It’s hard to understand, much less spell those one word explanations, so, I’ll give you my “slang” version of what I do: I help you take care of your family jewels- your adrenal glands. The adrenal glands interact with your nervous system, your hormonal system and your immune system (yep, all that was in that one word). Thus, people of all genders, creeds, and ages have them- without them, the ability to respond to stress- physiological, psychological and environmental is lost. That’s why taking the very powerful anti-inflammatory, prednisone, is a very dangerous medicine to stop taking abruptly- it mimics the hormone cortisol that’s made in your adrenal gland, and your body stops making as much when it’s being supplemented with the synthetic form. We couldn’t survive for even a short period of time without cortisol.
It affects so many different functions: from your blood sugar level to your daily sleep and wake cycles. That’s why I look at chronic conditions through the lens of how your stress response systems are working and I tailor treatment plans that focus on helping you care for your adrenal health. Insomnia, anxiety, chronic fatigue, allergies, IBS, memory loss, diabetes, aging- it’s all related to the state of your adrenal health. Luckily, with advances in lab testing methods, salivary testing has become a reliable and inexpensive way to get a good snap shot of your cortisol levels over a short period of time, and even to expand this over a monthly cycle in correlation to sex hormones. This is key, because the adrenal gland is such an amazing organ it has three main levels that correspond to regulating salt levels, sugar levels and sex hormones. Yep, all that, and there’s more! Our adrenal glands have a direct connection to the brain, as it releases the namesake adrenaline and noradrenaline, the key neurotransmitters of the sympathetic nervous system. How about that for ginzu knives? So, when you’re wondering if you’re gonna make that green light or feeling the effects of skipping meals, or losing too much sleep think of those glorious little glands that sit atop your kidneys, and commit to caring for your family jewels. Good Natured Medicine we help you take steps to get your adrenal glands back into action, be it insomnia, fatigue, or memory loss it all comes back to taking care of your family jewels. |
