{"id":2777,"date":"2017-02-14T22:43:51","date_gmt":"2017-02-14T22:43:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/anartfuldogger.com\/?p=2777"},"modified":"2020-01-31T05:28:05","modified_gmt":"2020-01-31T05:28:05","slug":"adrenal-fatigue-people-pets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/anartfuldogger.com\/adrenal-fatigue-people-pets\/","title":{"rendered":"What Adrenal Fatigue Has Taught Me About Life and the Animal Kingdom"},"content":{"rendered":"
Contents<\/p>
But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. Matthew 13:16 (NIV) <\/i><\/p>\n
You may or may not notice it, but I’ve been MIA on the blogosphere for quite some time\u2014for a good reason.<\/p>\n
Well, not quite so good, in fact.<\/p>\n
I had to deal with a set of then-mysterious health challenges.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I couldn’t put a finger on what was going on with my body. I was once the picture of near-perfect health. Aside from surviving a birth trauma and having a few health scares from the wear-and-tear experience on the physical plane, I had been blessed with excellent health most of my life. The worst that had ever happened were mostly communicable childhood diseases. I was no Miss Sports Illustrated, but having dropped six dress or pant sizes and a total of forty-two pounds on a tiny frame almost made me feel like one, and others thought so, too\u2014much to my (cha)grin. My energy was at an all-time high, and I had the best blood pressure reading by far, which didn’t happen even with regular workouts. With the best natural nutritional solutions, I didn’t think I’d ever fall ill, let alone develop a chronic condition, even in the midst of the most harrowing time of my life\u2014the Great Recession.<\/p>\n
Boy, was I wrong.<\/p>\n
The what-in-Sam-Hill moments began in late 2012 with occasional nightly sniffles and minor congestion. It was puzzling to me because I didn’t normally catch full-blown cold after my weight loss, except once in 2009. I had no sore throat at all. Soon, the stuffiness became a regular occurrence. Then the frequent sneezing. My friends told me that there might be bed bugs in my room. I didn’t think that was the case, and I was right.<\/p>\n
A few months later, the unholy trinity of runny nose, congestion, and sneezing became a daily struggle. Allergies hit me something fierce. I had no idea how all this happened. I knew all about seasonal allergies, but not 24\/7\/365 (or 366) allergies. Prior to this, I had no history of environmental and food allergies. I chalked it up to mold allergy. After all, there were big leaks on the roof of the house I live in. Part of the roof even collapsed in the garage and the area from the kitchen leading to the atrium.<\/p>\n
As the roof leaked some more, the more my nose leaked. The more stressors rained down on me, the more fluid drained through my nose. My symptoms worsened after an auto accident in December 2013. A friend and member of a church where I’m employed as a part-time keyboardist asked me how I was doing, and I told her a little bit about what happened. As part of her ministry, she offered free massage therapy. Previously a professional massage therapist trained in acupressure and reflexology, she once had a clinic treating worker’s compensation cases and motor vehicle accidents. A holistic practitioner and a fellow animal lover, she lent me her copy of Diane Stein’s <\/span><\/span>Natural Healing for Dogs and Cats<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/a>. <\/i>Her only caveat: disregard the New Age garbage there. She’s of the same persuasion\u2014we both believe that energy healing is far from evil because it comes from God, the source of life force or life energy. After all, it was Jesus, not Satan, who has been going about the Father’s healing business.<\/p>\n I then rediscovered Reiki in Stein’s book. I had heard about it since my first taste of distant energy healing via phone, brought on by pressing life problems, in late winter of 2012. For some unexplainable reason, Reiki was a bit freaky-deaky to me, although I had tried the more outlandish modalities by conventional standards during the phone healing sessions.<\/p>\n Back in nursing school, I dismissed energy medicine as soon as I learned about TTouch. I thought, what was that booga-booga, woo-woo, hocus-pocus [expletive], anyway? <\/i><\/p>\n That was just the beginning of my journey in energy-based modalities. It’s amazing how one’s mind flings wide open when confronted with persistent problems. A solution must be found once and for all. Even better, a drug-free solution. As someone who has been long interested in natural, holistic health, I thought that this might just be the ticket. Despite (and simultaneously thanks to) my conservative religious upbringing with an emphasis on health, I’ve always been the adventurous maverick seeker type, so I was willing to try anything as long as I didn’t break any moral law. I also thought it would be nice to reconnect to my Eastern roots\u2014as in the case of many energy or holistic modalities\u2014since the Western missionaries seem to have bred them out of us Asian Christians in that regard.<\/p>\n The limitations of government-subsidized health care and my bank account spurred me even more into the natural health direction. There was no way in H-E-double sticks I’d put more drugs into my body, and as it turned out, I had the feeling that conventional medicine, normally pushed by government health care, was and would never be a solution. (It turned out that I was right all along.) In addition, holistic treatments aren’t generally covered under that plan. I had to find something effective that wouldn’t hurt my already-not-so-healthy bank account. Allergy testing was out of the question. I wouldn’t subject myself to expensive, painful poking and prodding that weren’t even guaranteed to work.<\/p>\n My allergies were at their most unrelenting point by summer of 2014. Over-the-counter pills and supplements didn’t do the trick. I could easily go through a roll of paper towels or a box of tissues in a day. I’d have violent hacking cough for up to forty-five minutes just before bedtime. It disrupted my sleeping pattern. The nonstop runny nose, major congestion on both of my nostrils, and postnasal drip made it more difficult to rest. While lying down, sometimes I had to breathe through my throat, which dried it out even more. The lack of sleep caused me to have brain fog. My phlegm and mucus production far outweighed my creative output, sadly!<\/p>\n I also noticed that there was hair all over the floor every day. I couldn’t figure out how that happened. I used to fry my locks by rocking almost every style and color known to (wo)man back in the day, and I started to feel the effects a few years ago. So that must have been the cause of my hair loss, but this time, it seemed different since I stopped chemically treating my hair in early 2012. I also lost a good deal of body in my hair that I could no longer find a style that would look good on me. I’d usually grow baby hairs, but for quite sometime, I didn’t see them anymore. Though I considered them a nuisance, I missed seeing them this time around. I was afraid that I’d be the next president of Hair Club for Women or give Sin\u00e9ad O’Connor a run for her moolah. But even she grew her thick hair back!<\/p>\n I’ve never been a huge fan of coffee (except the cold varieties\u2014blended mocha and ice cream, of course!). I’ve always been sensitive to it, but I’ve developed oversensitivity to caffeine. Coffee ice cream wouldn’t normally cause the jitters, but I could stay up for half a day by just eating a small cup of it!<\/p>\n To add to the inconvenience of the messiness, bloating, and occasional cramps during that time of the month, I’ve had to deal with that other time of the month\u2014ovulation. I’d also sporadically spot for days at a time. It was almost like having my period during its light days twice in a month. My ovulation was also more uncomfortable than usual\u2014bloating and localized stabbing pain. The worst were upset stomach for two hours and pain on the right lower abdomen accompanied by malaise and morning sickness-like symptoms.<\/p>\n I was a hot mess. I was one sick puppy. I hoped I didn’t have to go the doctor or the hospital for all these crazy things!<\/p>\n Yet people thought everything was hunky-dory with me. When I told them what was going on with me, they were downright dismissive, though well-meaning,\u201dYou? Sick? But you’re still young!\u201d I still carry on with regular daily tasks and look well on the outside, which gives people the impression that I’m healthy. It doesn’t help that I look about almost half my age, but the aging process and the resulting decline in health have caught up with me. I never thought I’d acquire indefinite\/temporary semispoonie status. Not even my family knows that I’ve been going through all this.<\/p>\n Some 2,300 miles away, thanks to good old Google, I found help from Suzanne “Sue” White<\/a><\/span><\/span>, a retired registered nurse specializing in-person and distant allergy correction. Not long afterwards, she became my friend and my Reiki master\/teacher by correspondence. She’s a fellow pet mom who regularly shares Reiki with her two miniature Schnauzers and terrier mix<\/a><\/span><\/span>. So I figured that learning Reiki was a way to keep myself, my fellow humans, and my animal pals healthy and happy.<\/p>\n I did find relief from the allergy corrections starting on the first session. My persistent hacking cough gradually yet completely disappeared four weeks later, but there were numerous ups and downs\u2014significant reduction in symptoms followed by runny nose and congestion flare-ups, going back and forth. The cycle continued. An increase in symptoms is normal and even expected in holistic treatments as the body’s way to detox, recalibrate, and to flush out impurities, but I wasn’t entirely sure what was going on with me. Every single time we had a session, beginning with thirty minutes of Health Kinesiology followed by thirty minutes of Reiki, Sue sensed that I needed plenty of work on my lower back. (I later learned second-degree Reiki techniques: scanning problem areas from a distance when treating a person or an animal.) I was surprised to find out that I had a problem on my back. I’d never had any pain there. No history of back injury, either. Yet Sue continued to feel it strongly on my back, aside from my head and sinus areas, my obvious trouble spots.<\/p>\n I occasionally shared hands-on and distant Reiki with my own pets, clients’ pets, and a friend\/colleague’s black Lab in particular whose response to distant treatments was nothing less than amusingly astonishing. (That’s another story for another time!)<\/p>\n The allergy correction sessions didn’t work as well as I’d hoped. I’d feel better, then I’d feel worse. There was no way to tell how my body would react to each session. The unpredictability was predictable. Sue then suggested that I add homeopathic remedies by Andrea Coulter at Wholistic Health Care<\/a><\/span><\/span> to support the allergy correction. I consulted Andrea via e-mail on her homeopathic kits. She mentioned that if the kits didn’t work, it might mean that a deeper imbalance was present. I tried out her allergy kit without any luck. She might be right. Probably there was something more serious going on.<\/p>\n <\/a>Sure enough, I began experiencing extreme fatigue. I felt tired and sleepy, no matter how much I slept. I had to drag myself out of bed. I got to the point where I had to lie in bed for up to twelve hours straight or take frequent naps. I had very little energy left in my body. A few weeks later, the drowsiness then turned into a tired-but-wired feeling. I felt drained, yet the jitters made it difficult to fall and stay asleep as if I downed a good, mean amount of Starbucks doppio espresso. This proved to be worse than the previous stage where I was still able to stay asleep for a long time. On top of that, my immune system was shot. I rarely had colds, but I came down with a full-blown flu for the first time in fourteen years. Thankfully, I cleared it up within just three days with all-natural remedies. That, however, wasn’t the end of the problem. The sniffles, the congestion, the sneezing, the tired-but-wired feeling, the hair loss, and the skin breakout just kept on coming.<\/p>\n For some seemingly random reason, sometime in 2014, I decided to look up my old friend Jeffrey Mamora<\/a><\/span><\/span> on Facebook to reconnect. We attended the same private school. My cousin was his classmate, and their classroom was right next to mine. He and I never talked or hung out together back then. As musicians, we once played for a mutual friend’s wedding reception in the ’90s, but that was probably the only extensive interaction we had aside from occasional bump-ins at various church functions. This time around, we were on the same wavelength, albeit different type of vibration\u2014sympathetic vibrations. Not just on the musical level, but also on the spiritual side. (Not to mention our love of the foodie lifestyle!) I found out about his healing work on his Facebook posts. One miracle after another. No medical claims are made here (as the dark powers that shouldn’t be don’t want us to do so), but he has helped many people relieve longstanding chronic pain, emotional and mental distress, many other forms of ailments, and spiritual struggles. These folks experienced improvement within a very brief period of time\u2014even a few seconds for chronic pain. Energy healing was an important part of his healing work. As a Reiki practitioner, I was intrigued. Curiously, he said something along the lines that his energy healing style was something that came naturally, or rather, something that came from and through God. We became closer friends ever since. Not only we bonded over common interests, but also the fact that people have regarded us as total weirdos at best and sinners at worst for subscribing to so-called woo-woo, voodoo stuff\u2014not exactly cool in the religious ethnic subculture in which we were raised.<\/p>\n Jeff invited me to lunch at a popular eatery in his neck of the woods on the first week of January 2016. Over a steaming, delicious bowl of soto ayam<\/i><\/a><\/span><\/span>, a plate of chewy, tangy goodness called <\/i>pempek Palembang<\/i><\/a><\/span><\/span>, and a tall glass of my favorite <\/i>es teler<\/i><\/a><\/span><\/span> as a refreshing coup de gr\u00e2ce <\/em>on the menu, we talked about the healing modalities we’d been using in more detail. Then he told me that I should check the lower half of my back, precisely the location of the adrenal glands. I never thought they’d cause my incessant allergies and other strange symptoms I’d been experiencing!<\/p>\n I’d previously heard of chronic fatigue. It dawned on me that I should Google up the term adrenal fatigue. That was a light-bulb moment. All of my symptoms matched the description! I knew that back-to-back stress was the cause of my condition, but I finally had a name for it, and there was a solution for it! What a relief!<\/p>\n Then I remembered Sue saying that she felt a lot of imbalance on my lower back. Bingo! And Andrea was spot on about deeper imbalance in conditions that wouldn’t respond to treatments. As for my allergies, the problem wasn’t overreacting histamines. The problem was my adrenal glands (over)reacting to situations, lowering my cortisol level, consequently weakening my immune system. Everything made complete sense now! I was able to finally put the puzzle pieces together.<\/p>\n My adrenals have been in near-nonstop fight-or-flight mode for the at least the past eight years or so, which was quite the recipe for an adrenal fatigue goulash enough to give anyone a serious hunka-hunka burning indigestion. Come to think of it, my adrenals started to go into overdrive during the typical turbulent adolescent years compounded by the immigrant experience. It could possibly go even further back in time during my postmature birth trauma<\/a><\/span><\/span>. For about a couple of years, the adaptogens<\/a> I took as part of my weight loss protocol protected my adrenals, but I suspected that my health gradually declined after I discontinued my nutritional \u201cinsurance.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/a>The Great Recession unleashed a series of blows, further straining close and intimate relationships including family relationship, even a few years after the height of the economic meltdown that gave the Inland Empire a big fat knockout with a record unemployment rate of around 21 to 22 percent. Resentment, shouting matches, freak-out episodes, and anxiety attacks over finances became a way of life. Feelings of worthlessness, scarcity, inadequacy, and resignation set in. I couldn’t seem to shake them off for a long time. I lost my career and money mojo. I was defeated and confused when it came to my life direction. I’ve long felt unappreciated and misunderstood for the talents that I possess and devalued for not having skills that are prized in my local community\/subculture. Add my habitual, near-obsessive rumination a.k.a. (over)analysis paralysis as an intellectual introvert\u2014dreaming up horror scenarios for almost any situation. Add a good dose of stinkin’ thinkin’ on top, and voil\u00e0!<\/p>\n There have been few (if not no) boundaries in family relationship. I was expected (or pressured?) once again to conform to cultural and religious standards to regain some semblance of financial stability and consequently social acceptance. I simply could not and will not be able and willing to deny my authentic self, even if my finances needed CPR STAT. (Albeit an extreme example, read Anita Moorjani’s <\/span><\/span>Dying to Be Me<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/a> to get an idea of outdated, burdensome cultural expectations.)<\/p>\n <\/a>Life became a constant war zone. Other aspects of my life got sucked into the negative energy vortex. Ignoring my intuition, I ended up making a few more grave mistakes by allowing more energy vampires into my space. Opportunistic, manipulative, and vengeful personalities appeared. First, it was my then-so-called bandmate and friend who took me for a turbulent ride of narcissistic rage and rapid-fire borderline mood swings. The roller coaster crashed after he railroaded me into buying a vehicle that I couldn’t quite afford. It was one heck of an albatross around my neck for many reasons. I put it out there to the universe that I wanted the SUV gone somehow. My wish was granted\u2014but in the worst <\/i>way possible! The holiday season of 2013 brought me a total loss. The other party involved in the auto accident tightened his grip on me energetically and legally for fourteen months. He tried to get every single thing I owned, but he couldn’t get blood from a stone, so he ended up taking nearly $100,000 in settlement from my insurance policy. Thankfully, what little I had rightly remained in my possession. It took persistent affirmative prayers<\/a><\/span><\/span> to send these men away peacefully\u2014and for good.<\/p>\n The week following the accident, I noticed much stranger things going on in my body. Shortly after getting up from a relaxing dip in the Jacuzzi, I became unusually weak, lightheaded, and dizzy. Before long, I realized that I had jelly legs. Accompanied by some nausea, blurry vision turned into several seconds of blindness. I grabbed hold of the bathroom sink and leaned on the wall to keep myself from falling before finally squatting on the floor. I really wanted to lie down on the couch, but I needed to get dressed first! I had to ride this all out for about five to ten minutes. I suspected that this was all stress-related, but I didn’t know what the hell was happening. Could it be MS? Heavens, I hoped not! Unfortunately, this fainting episode was only the first out of several that continued until 2015. Some of them were not as serious, although I had to lie in bed for about ten minutes after getting up from a hot Epsom salt bath. In yet another distressing situation, I had a sudden Gumby leg attack yet again. This time around, I couldn’t react quickly enough. Next thing I knew, I slipped and fell. The back of my head smashed against the tile floor. This was no joke. I could end up in the ER for concussion or worse if this were to happen again! It turned out that I had orthostatic hypotension, one of the most common symptoms of adrenal fatigue in its more advanced stages<\/a><\/span><\/span>, triggered by postural change (rising after lying down), high temperatures, and of course, stress.<\/p>\n Realizing the root causes of my suffering and wanting to put and end to them all, I contacted Jeff again. I was more than ready to be completely healed. He introduced me to LifeWave<\/a><\/span><\/span>, a cutting-edge energy-based system.<\/p>\n Jeff was just the right person to help me, having suffered from severe adrenal fatigue as a result of toxic mold-induced allergies and many years of unhealthy hard-partying lifestyle, rage, and depression. He had made a dramatic 180 since then. He put me on a customized adrenal fatigue protocol using a main combination of Y-Age (a trio of Glutathione, Carnosine, and Aeon patches) to strengthen the immune system, detox, and reduce or eliminate inflammation, as well as SP 6 Complete patches to regulate and rebalance my screwed-up hormones that my smashed-up adrenals haven’t been able to produce or handle. Energy Enhancer and IceWave patches have been also occasionally used to increase the healing effect. We’ve rotated the patches on various acupoints, particularly and including but not limited to the kidney, bladder, triple burner, Four Gates, conception vessel (anterior midline of the body), and governing vessel (posterior midline). As a sleeping aid, Silent Night patches didn’t work as well as anticipated, so Jeff advised me to get 5-HTP supplements. I bought a combo with vitamin B6. They did the trick within just a week. Silent Night started to kick in. My body was so depleted from adrenal fatigue that it probably lacked the raw materials to produce melatonin. Along with the patches, I’ve been regularly taking LifeWave Corsentials to boost energy and the immune system, as well as adding Himalayan salt, good fats, and protein\u2014both plant- and animal-based\u2014to my diet to replenish my hormones. As much as I’d like to become a vegetarian or vegan for moral reasons, unfortunately, it’s near impossible to recover from adrenal fatigue from such a diet<\/a>.<\/p>\n LifeWave has made my healing process simple. In contrast, while they’ve been proven to work, most other methods (listed under Resources, Further Reading, and Further Viewing) seem to be more cumbersome, more complicated, and more expensive, requiring more supplements and lab orders.<\/p>\n I must admit that my healing journey has been frustrating at times with fits and starts, even until now. It generally takes a long time, usually many years, to recover from adrenal fatigue. Initially, it took five weeks for LifeWave to kick in. Sometimes I wondered if it worked, but giving up wasn’t an option. So I kept going. It confirmed my guess that I had so much imbalance in my body that needed to be straightened up. I’ve had cycles of feeling better followed by worsening symptoms. More snifflefest. More clogged-up nose. A bit more sneezing. And the nighttime coughing intermittently returned after one-and-a-half years of disappearance. More alternating episodes of eczema breakouts and clearing and more cycles of hair loss and regrowth. I even had one heat-induced near-fainting episode while doing chores outside last summer and on-and-off, brief stabbing pain in different body parts throughout the months. These symptoms, however, were not as bad as they were before LifeWave. I wasn’t too alarmed by the symptoms because I knew that my body was continually readjusting, detoxing, and recalibrating. The occasional pain in different body parts served a purpose. Pain on my chest meant released emotions. The pain in my lower back had something to do with the adrenals adjusting themselves.<\/p>\n Under Jeff’s sage healthcare and spiritual guidance, I almost regained my health for the most part within just between seven to eight months, much faster than the average expected recovery time in adrenal fatigue, typically one to one-and-a-half years for moderate adrenal fatigue and two to three years or longer for severe adrenal fatigue. He emphasizes the importance of spirituality in healing any kind of condition\u2014physical, emotional, mental, and situational\u2014as everything is first conceived in the spiritual realm before it manifests in physical form. Outer (dis)harmony results in inner (dis)harmony and vice versa.<\/p>\n At the time of this blog post, I’m almost recovering. I suspect that my cortisol and progesterone levels aren’t quite optimal just yet, although they’re significantly better than before. I still have on-and-off sniffles, congestion, sneezing, some sleep-all-day marathons, and spotting during ovulation, though not as copious and as frequent before LifeWave. (At the time of posting, I’ve been relatively spot-free, and I intend that it continues to be that way.) Nonetheless, I’m thrilled that the hacking cough has permanently disappeared yet again and that my aldosterone level seems to have stabilized. I no longer have fainting episodes after hot baths and during stressful situations. My hair has grown back (baby hairs and all!) and stopped its random, violent shedding, although its original thickness doesn’t seem to return just yet. This is the best I’ve ever felt since the onset of the first adrenal fatigue symptom despite the occasional ups and downs, although I’m concerned that I may have to see a naturopathic doctor to get rid of the persistent remaining few symptoms, which means additional medical expenses not covered by insurance. I remain confident that I will get to 100 percent someday soon. There is no other option but to remain positive. Positive thinking remains a challenging habit to cultivate for me, but it is the only way that contributes to overall health. I still need to make adjustments in my life to achieve total recovery.<\/p>\n Most importantly, I’ve also reached a new level of spiritual awakening in my healing experience. I’ve come across more brutal truths of existence across time and space and current state of affairs on Planet Earth. Truth be told, it hasn’t always been a pleasant journey with the occasional dark nights of the soul, but this is the point of no return. Onwards and upwards!<\/p>\n Rightly considered the silent postmodern epidemic due to global trauma (namely September 11 and the economic meltdown), pollution through chemicals and electromagnetic fields, and the hustle-and-bustle lifestyle, particularly in the US, adrenal fatigue affects about more than 66 percent of the world population<\/a><\/span><\/span>, even in much younger age groups. I suspect that the ever-present unrest and fear-mongering in the current state of affairs, which threaten to retrigger my past trauma, will add to the adrenal fatigue head count.<\/p>\n Conventional medicine does not recognize or treat adrenal fatigue. Medical professionals are trained to look only for signs of adrenal insufficiency or failure (Addison’s disease) or adrenal hyperactivity (Cushing’s disease).<\/p>\n Adrenal fatigue, brought on by stress and the aging process, is a result of the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis dysfunction<\/a><\/span><\/span>, which disrupts the production of neurotransmitters and hormones<\/a><\/span><\/span> that regulate many organ systems, thus impairing everyday vital functions of the body. Abnormal blood pressure levels, depression, anxiety, and digestive issues such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS)<\/a><\/span><\/span> are a few of the many far-reaching symptoms connected to adrenal fatigue. Performing basic daily tasks that most of us take for granted becomes a challenge.<\/p>\n The demands and responsibilities of ensuring the well-being of others along with real and potential liability issues place pet sitters, animal shelter workers, veterinarians<\/a>, nurses, physicians, social workers, and others in the caring professions at a higher risk for stress-related disorders. Depression, compassion fatigue (secondary traumatic stress disorder similar to PTSD), and suicide<\/a> run rampant. I suspect that those of you in caring occupations may have adrenal fatigue and not even know it. The nursing community<\/a> is already well aware of this.<\/p>\n Emotional, mental, biochemical, and physical stress (illnesses, injuries, infections, and surgeries) put an extra burden on the adrenals. Based on my conversations with pet care professionals over the past few years, many of them suffer from a laundry list of serious conditions acquired before and throughout their career. It’s a wonder how they manage to do the Energizer Bunny routine for many years, even decades!<\/p>\n In this female-dominated industry, we can’t afford to lose more women to stress. Be attuned to your body, mind, and spirit. Your adrenals will thank you, too! We all know that stress wreaks havoc on the monthly cycle<\/a><\/span><\/span>. Adrenal fatigue only exacerbates the symptoms. Even more critical are perimenopause and menopause where hormones go haywire<\/a><\/span><\/span>! Keep in mind that the ovaries lessen their production of estrogen and progesterone, transferring most of the duty to the adrenals. All the more reason to reduce or manage stress and take good care of your adrenals at all costs!<\/p>\n Generous, kind, big-hearted, and excellent listeners, empaths<\/a> are natural nurturers drawn to the caring professions. They also have a special connection with animals. Especially prone to compassion fatigue<\/a><\/span><\/span> and adrenal fatigue<\/a><\/span><\/span>, empaths tend to deeply absorb the emotions and symptoms of others. As people pleasers, they bend over backwards to accommodate, often to their detriment. Their high sensitivity also makes them attractive to energy vampires.<\/p>\n I have many (but not all) empathic traits. Chances are you also do if you’re a pet sitter or in any other caretaking role.<\/p>\n Like humans, dogs also develop stress-related adrenal exhaustion<\/a><\/span><\/span>, which, if untreated, can progress into Addison’s disease. Not surprisingly, female dogs, like their human counterparts, are more prone to adrenal exhaustion, as well as certain breeds such as Great Danes, Rottweilers, and standard poodles<\/a><\/span><\/span>. Spayed and neutered pets are more likely to have issues<\/a> because their adrenals work overtime in absence of gonads. Cocker spaniels are susceptible to hypothyroidism, often attributed to adrenal stress<\/a><\/span><\/span>. Looking back, my poor late Gonzo, bless his typical sensitive cocker soul, might have had burned-out adrenals because of his unexpected stay in the dog pound for several days. He had lifelong immunity-related health issues ever since: grass allergies, demodectic mange, eye infections, and ear infections.<\/p>\nThe turnaround<\/span><\/h2>\n
Getting down to the root causes<\/span><\/h2>\n
LifeWave and energy modalities to the rescue<\/span><\/h2>\n
Adrenal fatigue: implications for pet care professionals\u2014and everyone<\/span><\/h2>\n
Hormonal imbalance and pre-existing\/coexisting chronic conditions<\/span><\/h3>\n
Empathic personality traits<\/span><\/h3>\n
Adrenal fatigue in pets<\/span><\/h2>\n