Still drained

I'm still really struggling today.  Slept horribly last night and got up at 6:15 when I had been laying in bed for over 15 minutes unable to fall back asleep.  Did a long yoga video since we didn't have anywhere to rush off to this morning.  Had a mug of bone broth and read the kids books before breakfast.  Had our usual breakfast - eggs, peppers, blueberries, and strawberries.  Just never got much energy going.  Dizziness has been with me all day and after I put the kids down for nap I struggled to stay awake to work.  By the time I finished work, Carolyn was up so I didn't get to lay down at all.  Even after eating dinner I have no energy.  And now I have a huge craving to eat a giant sundae.  But we don't have any ice cream or anything in the house.  So instead I'll read to the kids and head to bed early. 

I hope this doesn't last much longer, it's how I felt way back at the beginning but now I have 2 kids to take care of.  Barely awake even as I write this.  Taking a day off the bone broth tomorrow to see if it is in any way linked.

Exhaustion from little exertion

I'm hoping my body is doing great things with the bone broth vitamins and minerals I've been consuming the last couple days.  Because all I can tell is that I'm dizzy and exhausted.  We spent the day at Navy Pier with my dad and it fully drained me.  Walking around and then cooking dinner should not make me this tired.  So I'm hoping that something is healing and that is where my energy has gone.  I just hope that I don't get as weary as I did in May 2012, because this timing would be horrible.  I did do yoga this morning before we left, but will not go on my nightly walk because I am just that tired and dizzy.  I pray that in the morning things will be better, for I feel now like I did when all of this started nearly 5 years ago.

You can feel better!

It's been a long time since I've written here, but things have improved.  I stopped nursing my son last October and I wonder if that has had a huge impact.  The dizziness actually got worse right afterwards for about 2 months.  But I'll never know if that was hormone related or stress since we moved and it was a stressful period right before the holidays.  This calendar year, though, things have been better.

I'm back here writing after a conversation with my sister the other night.  We are both discovering that the number of women that experience signs of adrenal fatigue but no one can find anything wrong with them are staggering.  This seems to especially be true after women have babies.  So I wanted to come back and write about how I've been battling towards better health.  All of this is without the guidance of any doctor, because I just can't handle listening to random advice anymore.  I've done quite a bit of research about adrenal fatigue and I always can highlight a huge number of the issues as ones I've experienced.  A few places you can go to check out lists:
http://www.drlam.com/articles/adrenal_fatigue.asp
http://www.naturalnews.com/024985_cortisol_blood_fatigue.html

Going off the first site, here's what I can check off as having experienced within the past 6 months:

Tendency to gain weight and unable to lose it, especially around the waist.  I managed to lose 25lbs, but it has taken me over 18 months to do so.

High frequency of getting the flu and other respiratory diseases and these symptoms tend to last longer than usual.  Not a high frequency, but colds take a long time to work through me - significantly longer than anyone else in the house.

Reduced sex drive.

Lightheaded when rising from a horizontal position.  At times the room nearly blacks out.

Unable to remember things.  I can forget what I'm saying midsentence, and this happens several times a week.

Lack of energy in the mornings and in the afternoon between 3 to 5 pm.  This has been better lately, but I was needing a nap frequently.

Feel better suddenly for a brief period after a meal.

Cravings for salty, fatty, and high protein food such as meat and cheese.

Increased symptoms of PMS for women; periods are heavy and then stop, or are almost stopped on the 4th day, only to start flow again on the 5th or 6th day.  This seems to finally be regulating in the last month or two and my horrible cramping was no more this month.

Pain in the upper back or neck with no apparent reason.  All sorts of back pain!!

Feels better when stress is relieved, such as on a vacation.

Lightheaded.  Yep, actually experiencing this right now.

Okay, so it's pretty clear that I can include nearly every one of the 16 symptoms he lists.  Now, as of lately things seem to be improving slightly.  But this is still an uphill battle and I am striving to get more healthy things into my body to help it heal.  About 18 months ago I cut out all wheat products and most other grains.  I have tried low carb, but that doesn't work for me well in the long term, so we include sweet potatoes, regular potatoes, and rice fairly regularly in our meals.  Eating as many organic foods as possible seems to be working, unless you ask our bank account.  They always say pay for good food now instead of paying the doctor later.  Well, I'm trying to avoid paying the doctor now and later.

My most recent change is drinking bone broth.  We ate organic, free range chicken legs earlier this week and I threw them all into the crockpot with some veggies, spices, and water.  I started it Thursday morning and have left it on since.  Yesterday and today I had 2 mugs of it during the morning.  It served to fill me up a bit and I found I needed less for breakfast, which was interesting.  I'm wondering if this broth will provide some of the missing nutrients my body still seems to be searching for.  I will some again tomorrow and Monday, but am cooking dinner in the crock pot for Monday night so will need to end it there.  I'm going to see how brittle the bones are afterwards as well and consider trying to grind them up for the gelatin.  We'll see how that goes.

I've also been changing up my exercise lately.  Frustrated with my inability to lose weight, I've halted my weight lifting.  I'm opting instead for things that should help to reduce any inflammation in my body and help me relax.  I've taken to nightly walks while Jon is putting the kids to bed.  I've also started yoga/pilates in the mornings when I wake up early enough.  I was going to push myself to get up at 6:30 to have enough time, but with reconsidering that I'm not yet fully recovered from the adrenal fatigue I am going to do it Sat/Sun and any other day that I happen to wake up.  Sleep has been horrible the last 2 nights with middle of the night wakings where I struggle to get back to bed.  The kids have also been up a bunch, which certainly doesn't help.

I'm restarting this journal to reach out to any women that are struggling with similar symptoms.  No, it's not normal to always be tired as a mom.  As your kids get older you should get your energy back!  No, it's not normal to be lightheaded frequently or to have muscle aches that you can't contribute to anything.  And there are things you can start doing today to help you feel better.  I've been battling this for nearly 5 years now, so I can't give you the magic pill to make it all better.  But most of my days are good days now as my body recovers.  And I haven't spent tons of $$ on special supplements or drugs.  I'm doing this the natural way, you're welcome to come along for the ride if you'd like!

UGH!

It's back, and it's back with avengance.  The postural hypotension has been particularly bad lately too, like nearly every time I get up.  Doesn't matter if I'm going from sitting to standing or lying to standing either.  Just massive dizziness and near black-outs.  And of course that just settles back into the general vague dizziness I've been feeling all day lately.  I just counted and I've seen 9 different doctors in the past 4 years, 9!!  And not one found a single thing that could explain the dizziness.

I've made massive changes to diet, eliminating grains and eating fairly low carb.  Yet that hasn't made a difference.  I've been taking vit D3 5k IU for several months now and that's not helping.  Although I hope it and massive sun exposure is at least helping my paltry vit D levels found in Feb.  The past 2 weeks I added in magnesium at bed and my prenatals and B complex with breakfast.  But this darn exhaustion and dizziness just won't budge.  I'm not interested in seeing more doctors just to be told they can't find anything.  But I just can't live like this anymore.  And nobody around me understands just what's going on.  It's the best I can do to just make it through the day at this point.  I'm not losing weight any more and don't have the energy to exercise.  A walk around the neighborhood is exhausting. 

I just want my life and my energy back and this dizziness to be gone.  Is that too much to ask?

2 new possibilities

Went back to the doctor this afternoon.  She went over my blood work results, EKG, and spirometry (lung function).  Everything in my blood work looks great, except my vitamin D levels.  There's a small possibility that is related, so she said I should start taking 5000IU of D3 daily.  I picked some up on the way home.  Need to do a quick search to see if it's better to take that at night or in the morning.
The lung function came back as severely obstructed.  The print out says my lungs are like that of a 78 year old!  I've never smoked, but 2 of my brothers have asthma.  I have had problems on and off with breathing while playing soccer and breathing in real cold weather.  So maybe there's something wrong and perhaps I'm not getting enough oxygen.  It would fit, since I yawn a lot and I could see being more tired if I'm unknowingly struggling to breath.  So she gave me samples of an inhaler and I'm to take 2 inhales twice a day for 3 weeks.  I got back 3/27 and we'll see if things have improved at all.  I'm hoping that this will fix it all, but we shall see.

Heading Back

Heading back to the doctor tomorrow.  This latest cluster of bad days is still with me.  So we're on day 12 with no end in site.  Starting to affect my mood and I find myself exhausted pretty early each night.  Got all my bood work back online and everything looks good.  It's really nice to actually see my results and be able to sit and look at them, as well as research a little what the numbers mean.  Vitamin D is low, but that shouldn't cause dizziness.  So I'm going to ask about my back tomorrow.  Taking in all of my previous scans and she's going to have a neuroradiologist look over all of them.

Weaning James is not going well.  We are down to 3x/day, but those are now all long, ~10 minute nursing sessions.  And they are in the morning, at nap time, and right before bed.  I have no idea which one I would even start to cut first.  So hopefully we choose a different path to investigate before going that route.  I had planned for him to be done at 2, I hope he'll be ready by then.

Here's hoping that we can find something tomorrow, because this is getting bad.  Carolyn will be 4 in less than 6 weeks.  That means I have been dealing with being dizzy for about 4.5 years if we count the dizziness I had while pregnant.  There has to be some sort of explanation!

Horrible day...

And it's only 9:15!  When I got out of bed, I almost fell over.  I grabbed the wall to steady myself, used the sink to get to the bathroom and then back to bed.  I felt like I was on a boat while James nursed (Jon gets him from the crib).  Haven't felt right all morning.  I just wanted to be sure and note this in here. 

Hoping driving to Carolyn's soccer goes okay!  Eating breakfast didn't seem to help, I don't know what's up.  I'm hoping this will decrease as the day goes on.  About time to leave now, here goes nothing.