In This Storm

First time someone suggested adrenal fatigue as that which ails me, or a portion of it anyway, she was someone who knows about it from personal experience. Not her own, but from watching her dad suffer from the effects of adrenal failure. So there’s a possibility there is something to this; I’m not saying this isn’t it.

And then the nurse practitioner I met with at a local compounding pharmacy suggested this could be a problem. And she recommended saliva testing.

Really. expensive. saliva. testing.

I dutifully purchased the test kit.

Took it home to show my annoyed-because-we-already-spent-$150-for-the-consult-alone husband.

And spent too much time one Sunday spitting into little vials.

Froze them.

And mailed them off.

Not surprisingly, the nurse called me last week to tell me my results were in and they are certainly consistent with adrenal fatigue - though we need the other lab results from the nutty “physician” I saw last week doctor I thought was going to be my new physician to map out a plan.

But you know, and truly this has nothing to do with me and my beef, I am losing “faith” in all of this alternative/holistic medicine… Not that I ever really had a lot of “faith” in it from the start…

I do, however, trust my girls’ pediatrician implicitly. I’ve heard from other professionals that this man is a genius.

It isn’t just me. My husband likes him quite well, too, which is saying a lot. Not because my husband is hard to please.  My husband doesn’t spend a lot of time in doctors’ offices so he just tends not to form especially strong opinions about doctors one way or the other. Anyway, you already know how much I love this guy. The pediatrician, that is. My husband, too, of course. But I’m singing the praises of my girls’ pediatrician at the moment.

Anyway.

Dr. Blakey is very much “into” integrative medicine. Let’s get the “whole picture.” Let’s dot all our i’s and cross all our t’s with the labs. And then we can try proven and proven-to-be-safe supplements before bringing in the “big guns” or to supplement their use. But he’s never going to let us walk out of the office without an antibiotic if the girls need one and he’s always going to refer us to a specialist if he’s not 100% sure on something. (Hence our oldest having a longer list of specialists she’s seen than I do. So far.)

So Dr. Blakey’s advice holds a lot of weight around here. And one of the places he always recommends I check anything alternative out is DrWeil.com. So I do.

And here’s what the good doctor, Weil that is, had to say about saliva testing in answer to a question this past October:

“Saliva testing is not a reliable method of assessing levels of any hormone.” [emphasis mine]

Which is kind of what I was already thinking.

When I was $150 richer.

Or, in our case, $150 not so poor.

I have another one of these test kits sitting here to fill up in another week or so to test estrogen, progesterone, etc. Thankfully, I don’t have to pay anything for that one until I send it in.

With my check for another $150.

Heh.

I’m thinking: Maybe NOT.

If this is adrenal fatigue, I’ll leave it to my “team” of conservative medical professionals to figure it out.

(Wow. If you read here in the first hour or so after I posted that, well, wow. You’re probably thinking adrenal fatigue is the least of my worries. Put down the bottle, Kari. I have no idea how my sentences ended up discombobulated like that. But at least I can spell discombobulated. Or at least spell check thinks so.)