Adrenals Fatigued?
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All you vets out there are familiar with these little organs, but for those of you who are not, the adrenal glands are tiny guys that sit right on top of the kidneys. They are powerhouses and responsible for the production of hormones such as cortisol, aldosterone, adrenaline, sex hormones, and help us regulate our blood pressure, our metabolism, our immune system and our stress levels.
As a functional medicine veterinarian, I saw adrenal fatigue in practice more often than not – chronic allergy dogs whose adrenals could not produce any more cortisol from fatigue, dogs that were chronically infected and immunodeficient, to name a few. In addition, just like you and me, our pets are living with chronic stress – stress from environmental and food toxins, stress from the emotions of their owners and constant changes in their homes.
These little glands are dubbed our “fight or flight” organs because of the production of cortisol and adrenaline and are appropriately associated with the first chakra, our root chakra. I came across a great article about adrenal fatigue that was more comprehensive than I have read before. Check it out:
Adrenal Fatigue: Symptoms, Causes and Treatments | Women’s Health Network
While adrenal fatigue is well etched into my brain, I never thought about adrenal dysregulation until I read this article. It perfectly explained by ability to go to sleep but not stay asleep, my “wiredness” throughout the day with periods of exhaustion, why my husband would call for me from across the house and I would immediately feel a surge of panic. I would tense up waiting for some bad news from him and relax when he would just say the thing he needed to say. But at that moment the cortisol was released and the damage was done. My adrenal glands were not handling normal everyday life appropriately. Everything was cause to panic.
Now I go back and look over the decades of owning a huge veterinary business and I think of all the times I felt that squeeze or surge, over and over again. I wouldn’t even pull into the clinic before I got a call on my cell phone of some impending calamity that awaited me at work. It got to a point where my body could not differentiate between the small issues that could easily be solved and the massive problems that needed immediate attention. More importantly, my adrenal glands could not differentiate between the two and would fire off cortisol with just as much intensity no matter the problem. I was moving through my day on a roller coaster of periods of cortisol highs followed by the lows of exhaustion from the perceived fight or flight. Cortisol can hang out in the body for upwards of 200 minutes so you can see the quick stressor results in long term physiological changes.
I remember a particular cortisol surge when the technicians would present my upcoming case with the client’s and their emotions flowering the facts. It is truly wonderful to hear how a client loves us and is happy, but when the tech would tell me that a client was mad or that there was little improvement, I would feel myself tense up and my entire demeanor would shift. Looking back I know that I would fall immediately out of my heart center and into my ego. And in the ego, we are least effective as veterinarians.
When I went into the exam room, I was almost always met with a completely different emotional vibe. It would take me about ten minutes to settle back down into the reality which was never bad. Perhaps the client was frustrated but it wasn’t anything we couldn’t talk and work through. More often than not, however, once we started talking about the improvements of the pet, they would realize that their pet was in fact improving, just maybe a little slower than they wanted. This presented another perfect opportunity to discuss realistic expectations.
A few weeks ago, I had a wonderful lunch with my colleague and friend who is considering opening up her own veterinary practice. She talked through her ideas but kept pulling back from the big entrepreneurial goal. Finally, I asked her why she was so scared. And her response was shocking. She looked at me with complete honesty and fear in her eyes and said, “What if I can’t heal all my patients? What if I make a mistake?”
My answer to this beautiful and brilliant veterinarian and to all of you out there – you will make a mistake and you will not heal all of your patients. To put this profound amount of pressure on ourselves with expectations that will never be met is setting us up for adrenal fatigue, compassion fatigue, empathy fatigue and the ultimate – walking away from our careers long before we should. How can we operate daily, carrying this amount of fear?
Living in fight or flight, in our first chakra, is no way to exist long term and will ultimately prove deleterious effects on our bodies. Living in our second chakra of emotions is exhausting. Living in our third chakra of our ego is isolating. So we know that we must live in our hearts, our fourth chakra, where we have a sense of connectedness, love and compassion that does not fatigue. In my next blog, we start the process of learning how to live in the fourth chakra.
Feeling effects of adrenal dysfunction? Click on the adrenal fatigue article above, take the quiz and find a functional doctor or herbalist that can help your precious adrenals. Animals need you healthy and whole!
With love and hope,
Dr. Erin Holder