One of the most frequent problems that adrenal fatigue sufferers face is how do you deal
with the need or the potential need for anti-depressants if it's given to you by your medical doctor.
This is Dr.Lam, founder of DrLam.com. In this video, we're going to go through what really
happens to people who complain to their doctor about fatigue.
Now, usually, the medical doctor will do a complete medical workup, make sure there is
no anemia, make sure there is no thyroid problems and if necessary prescribe medications to
stimulate the body to give you more energy. This can include thyroid replacement, bioidentical
hormone replacement and other hormones such as testosterone. Now if adrenal fatigue is
present and these interventions are not really doing their job, and fatigue continues, the
medical doctors will often resort to the use of anti-depressants. Well, why?
Now most people with adrenal fatigue, they already have a low energy state and low vitality
to begin with. If you try to stimulate the body to give more energy, and it works in
some people and that's fine, but long term a lot of people will get into more frustration
because these medications simply don't address the root problem. As a result, the body continues
to slow down, and sleep becomes a problem, appetite becomes problematic, the GI disturbances
becomes exaggerated, etc., etc., and brain fog can get worse.
Now if you complain enough to your doctors, the doctor will have no choice but to do something
and often times sleeping pills as well as anti-depressants are given. Now, many people
come to us faced with this dilemma. Should you take the anti-depressants or not? Of course
you should always listen to your doctor because indeed if there are strong components of depression
within your adrenal fatigue, you have to resolve that issue. The problem becomes even more
interesting in that many of these people that embark on an anti-depressant will actually
not get better. In other words, even with anti-depressants on board, they don't feel
significantly improved in terms of energy as well as fatigue.
Now, the sleep may be improved because anti-depressants has a tendency to help people to be more slow
and then help with the sleep. But the depression itself tends to stay. The question is why?
Now we always have to ask why. Now we always have to ask why because if we don't ask, then
the tendency is just to say well, the anti-depressant dose is not strong enough, and let's get more.
And often times this is true. Medical doctors in their best intentions will give more anti-depressant
because the symptomatology refuses to go away.
Now in the case of adrenal fatigue, when the body is slowing down, the fatigue and the
feeling anti-social, and the feeling of not having energy to be in an active mode, insomnia,
are all also part of the clinical picture. So there's tremendous overlap, so for a clinician
that is not astutely aware of adrenal fatigue, then the body is basically telling the clinician,
given the symptoms, to basically prescribe anti-depressants.
Now, if a person is truly depressed because of neurotransmitter issues as well as cognitive
impairment, then anti-depressants will do a great job and it's very good to use. However
if there's a strong adrenal component, many will find that this doesn't really help that
much and in fact many will feel worse.
Now, the problem is compounded if after a while the anti-depressant stops working or
it works for a little while and get worse and you cannot get off because once you get
off you can get rebound especially if it's too fast. So there's a lot of issues that
are associated with these drugs that if it's properly used can be beneficial but in the
case of anti-depressant used during adrenal fatigue and not helping, it's really an alert
that in fact anti-depressants may not be the best choice and the best route to overcome
the symptoms and one of the key symptoms therefore is anti-depressants not working. When you
have this situation, think adrenal fatigue.
Those of you who are interested to learn more about this topic can get my mini book called
"Psychology of Adrenal Fatigue Syndrome," as well as one called "Central Nervous System
Disruptions and Adrenal Fatigue Syndrome."
I hope you've enjoyed this video. For more information on this topic, head over to DrLam.com
where I have written over a thousand articles to help educate people. You can also call
me at 626-571-1234 for more information on Adrenal Fatigue and how to navigate it. Finally,
if you enjoyed this video, please subscribe to my YouTube channel. Thanks for watching.