Adrenal Burnout

Question
QUESTION: Hi RPG,

I have read with interest your information in regards to adrenal burnout. I had a severe accident in my early 20s, and following this I had two years where I felt enormous energy. However, after two years I slumped into depression and became increasingly fearful and anxious. Things that never before would have bothered me started to effect me e.g. socialising with people, giving presentations to an audience etc. I have had serious "stress"  for 25-30 years, resulting in adrenal burnout and total lack of energy and initiative. I started on the Primal Diet about 2.5 years ago, and have had some improvements including some reduction in stress and fear. Initially, I did the complete PD as recommended by Vonderplanitz, but have now reduced veggie juices to twice per week (before hot bath) and dairy, but still eating raw butter and cream. I understand that you are not keen on dairy. I have not had the symptoms mentioned e.g. throwing up, but have some ongoing problems with dizziness and on occasion constipation. I would be very interested to hear further on how you overcame your adrenal burnout, e.g. what symptoms did you have before? When I was at my worst I had it all Inc. candida, constant headaches (high copper and mercury), brain fog, paralysing fear and anxiety, dandruff (looking like a snow field), severe chronic fatigue. How long did it take before you got any significant improvements? What were the improvements? Did it make a big difference to ditch dairy what improvements did you see? What difference did you see after starting to use raw adrenals, was the raw adrenals from animals or through tablet? I was previously on a mineral supplement program, but as I was eating cooked food at the time, I did not see much improvements, but I think the mineral program did help to some extent e.g. taking raw adrenal, thyroid and pituitary gland extract. Since being on PD, I have not taken any extra supplements e.g. gland extract, is it better to use direct from an organic animal? I have since last week started to consume high meat (aged in jar for over 1 month), how long in your experience does it take to see any affects from high meat? What are the affects normally?

Thanks
Anders

ANSWER: I had much the same symptoms you had re acute anxiety, chronic fatigue, dizziness constipation, including others such as easily-inflamed skin, blood-pressure issues, severely weakened teeth etc. I don't think I had candida, but I had a 100 other symptoms or conditions.

For me, it took c.4 months after cutting out absolutely ALL raw dairy before I noticed that a sizeable proportion of my health-problems had disappeared(eg:- the chronic fatigue, the dizziness and the anxiety was reduced, among others). It took another 2-3 years before I could say I was basically 100% cured, though. I had been on the primal diet for c.6 months before cutting out all raw dairy but had only experienced a little improvement which was removed when I added in some raw dairy a month(?) or so after going for the Primal Diet.

I only tried raw adrenals something like a good 5 years after becoming cured of my past issues, so I didn't really notice anything but a slight lightening of my irises, that was it. Though, I suspect that like cures like, and that such raw adrenals would be useful for someone still with adrenal-related symptoms. I only view Dr Ron's freeze-dried adrenals as being OK re supplements, though if you can get hold of genuinely raw 100% grassfed adrenals, thyroids from farms that's even better(take them in very small doses, though, at first).

Things that can speed up recovery include eating some more raw organs in the diet such as raw marrow, raw tongue, raw liver, raw kidney etc., though still eat plenty of raw muscel-meats as well, of course. As for the high-meat, I found that I needed to eat at least 1 mouthful-sized chunk of high-meat each day in order to get the full 100% effect from it.

The bacteria in the high-meat help boost the levels of serotonin in the brain thus improving mood and feelings of well-being. However, I did notice that when I combined eating high-meats with anything non-raw/non-palaeo on the same day, that while the high-meat helped to offset the usual negative effects of eating such non-RPD foods re improving digestion etc., that the beneficial effect of high-meats re mood did not appear. A very few people don't experience effects from high-meat at all even when eating 100% rawpalaeo, but I think in your case, it might be due to your still consuming raw dairy of various kinds.

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thanks RPG, much appreciated. I will cut out my consumption of dairy. I have some follow up questions in regards to this:

1. It seems to me that my diet will be very limited after cutting all dairy. Could you provide some examples what you eat breakfast, lunch and dinner.
2. I have consumed a lot of red meat and offal (kidney and liver) in last couple of weeks and have noted that I am more angry and irritated, is it best to mix it up with raw wild fish (live in Australia so plentiful)?
3. I suffer from hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) and need to eat frequently otherwise I feel nauseous. If I cannot eat dairy what fat do you recommend me to eat with say dates to ensure that the sugar is released slowly into the blood stream e.g. avocados and coconut or

Thanks
Anders

Answer
I see. Well, I, like a lot of RPDers, usually just need to eat 1 large meal a day eaten within 4 hours at most, usually 2 hours, usually consisting of raw animal fat and protein with some raw carbs a bit before or after. My tyical daily meals might consist of any 1 of the following combinations:- half of a raw wild hare-carcass including some raw organs plus 2-3 bananas; 20 extra-large raw wildcaught oysters plus some raw avocadoes; half of a raw leg of lamb/mutton(100% grassfed, of course) plus some raw peaches; 3/4 of a kilo of raw wild venison plus some 500g of organic blueberries; 1 kilo of raw giant prawns plus some raw samphire;  1 kilo of raw wildcaught swordfish plus some watermelon; 1 raw wild mallard duck carcass plus some 500g of raspberies;  1 raw (100% grassfed) cow's tongue; a dozen raw quail's eggs plus    etc. etc.

I did used to eat frequent small meals throughout the day when I first started RVAF diets, but my experience was quite different from yours, in that I actually felt that eating constantly made me more nervous  re anxiety-issues. I also found that I actually healed better when I wasn't eating all the time.But everyone's different.

Avocacod or coconut sounds fine, just don't go for processed stuff like avocado oil or coconut oil, however raw it may be claimed to be. I myself would prefer raw animal fat such as raw marrow or raw suet or raw tongue, but that's just me.

I wouldn't suggest eating too much in the way of raw organs only. I once did a very foolish experiment, eating only raw organic/grassfed liver and nothing else every alternate week, and I suspect I got symptoms of rabbit-starvation as a result.
I would suggest eating raw fatty meats as a mainstay, and incorporating a wider variety of raw organs as well such as raw hearts or raw tongue or raw marrow/suet, if possible. Also, include plenty of raw carbs. Some people have claimed that they only got rid of candida as a result of going fully raw, zero-carb, but I think that that might be somewhat premature at this stage, especially since many find that they are unable to transition to raw, zero-carb without experiencing nasty side-effects of various kinds.

HTH,
RPG.

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