How the “forgotten hormone” is beating up your body. Cortisol.

Stress stinks. We live in a very stressful world. And not just emotional stress but an extreme amount of physical and biochemical stress as well. It is extremely challenging to be a human being.

Cortisol, “the stress hormone”, is a key central mechanism involved in the development, prevention or reversal of autoimmune disease (AD). But typically, the same goes for any chronic health issue of any kind. Cortisol is called “the forgotten hormone”. That is because almost all doctors forget about cortisol when it comes to trying to figure out what is causing chronic disease.

Cortisol hormone levels should start highest in the morning and slowly go down as the day goes on hitting it’s low spot at bedtime. We fall fast asleep easily. Nothing keeps us awake. We sleep all night long. Nothing wakes us up. No having to empty our bladders. No pain. No brain running. Nothing. We “sleep like the dead”. We get the restorative, healing sleep we need to stay healthy. We then wake up, jump out of bed, feeling great and full of energy and we do it all over again. Sound familiar? Or not so much?

When cortisol is off, it will tend to show up as sleep issues of course. Including, not waking up in the morning feeling refreshed. But another classic sign of a cortisol issue is a drop in energy in the afternoon. Or fatigue all day long. Or chronically low blood pressure. Or high blood pressure. Or not tolerating exercise well. Or anxiety and panic attacks. Or weight gain. Or blood sugar issues. Or not really feeling a lot better after starting a thyroid medication. Headaches. Dizziness. Stretch marks on arms, legs, buttocks, stomach or breasts. Memory issues. Excessive hair growth in women involving the stomach, chest, neck or face. In men, erectile dysfunction. Constipation. Heartburn. “Wow”.

The stress hormone cortisol is designed to go up and down, up and down, up and down a little bit many times a day. Any kind of stress will do this. Whether it is emotional stress, physical stress, spiritual stress or biochemical stress. To our bodies, stress is stress. It doesn’t matter what kind. If you stub your toe and hop around in pain, that’s physical stress. If you’re driving in a bad snowstorm, that’s emotional stress. But if there’s too much stress or too great a single stressor or too much stress for a long time, cortisol levels go up and get stuck in the “on” position. Now we are stuck in the “fight or flight” mode. The “life or death” mode. The “I’m running from a bear who is trying to eat me” mode. Or simply the “stress mode”.

This is when people start to develop one health problem after another. One thing after another after another. After accumulating many different health issues, a person might think to themselves “Why is my body not fixing anything anymore? Why am I getting one problem after another after another? I thought my body was supposed to fix problems. If I stub my toe, hopping around in pain, I’m not thinking that my toe will hurt the rest of  my life. I should just have to wait for it to go away after a few seconds and then make sure I don’t kick that chair leg ever again. Or if I cut myself, I’m not thinking that I will have an open wound my whole life. I’m thinking it will close up all by itself.  If it is bad enough I might need to put a bandage on it. But the body does all the work for me. But now body, I have all these different health issues and you don’t seem to be want to fix any of them.”

Your body agrees with you. It says “Yes, I am your body. I am here to fix any problem you get. But we have this bear chasing us. This “life or death” situation. Life or death is a little more important than any other kind of problem you can come up with. Now, if that bear ever decides to stop chasing us, I will start to fix all your problems for you.”

This is why it is so important to address cortisol issues if you’re going to ask the body to fix all the health issues that have been accumulating . This is often times why people may be doing all the “right things“ for themselves but still don’t feel healthy. Exercising. Eating better. Trying to manage stress better. This is also why people become “wired and tired”. Tired all day long but when they try to go to sleep at night they can’t shut their brains off and fall asleep.

Anyone who is in their mid teens or older will not heal unless you address cortisol issues directly. For children who are younger than their mid teens, they are such good healers I tend to find that if you simply get rid of all the physical stressors to their system they will reset the cortisol all by themselves. This is why I don’t tend to formally test cortisol very often in the younger children but always test cortisol in anybody mid teens or older.

Saliva cortisol testing is the optimal way to look at cortisol levels throughout the day. Saliva testing was the original testing method developed for cortisol. Ideal cortisol levels at different times of the day has been established for many years. This is different than trying to check cortisol levels in blood which does not have ideal ranges established other than 8 AM and 5 PM.

Saliva testing of many hormones, including cortisol, is better at seeing what is going on inside the cells of our body. “Intracellular” hormone levels. What goes on in the liquid part of the blood, the serum, is what is typically tested for in blood work. There’s not much work going on in the liquid part of our blood. All the action happens inside our cells.

The very worst time to check for a stress hormone level is right after getting stabbed with a sharp object. Immediately, cortisol levels go up. When someone has their blood drawn, they have just been stabbed with a sharp object. Immediately with this stabbing, cortisol levels will be effected and you won’t get an accurate result. Spitting tends to be a lot less stressful than being stabbed.

Only a very small number of people who have significant cortisol issues are ever identified in more traditional allopathic medicine. Only the extremely high or the extremely low are typically ever tested for. Extremely high is called Cushing’s disease. Extremely low is called Addison’s disease. There are plenty of very healthy people who have ideal cortisol levels. But given the amount of chronic disease in our current society, there are many, many people that are not normal but are also not at the extremes such as in Cushing’s and Addison’s.

Any time someone uses a steroid medicine and it helps their health issue, you know that cortisol is not right. Whether it is a steroid cream for a rash. Whether it is a steroid inhaler for asthma. Whether it is a spray for your nose or an injection of a painful knee. Whether it’s a steroid you swallow such as prednisone. Anytime steroids are used and they help, cortisol is always off. We tend to use steroids for many things in many different forms as you can see. Now you’re getting a sense of how many people have cortisol issues.

In the body, cortisol should be turned into cortisone. Cortisone is a steroid hormone made by your body in order to put out inflammation. Excessive inflammation is the driver of all chronic disease. Any place there is a health issue, there is excessive inflammation. If you have inflammation in the skin, you have a skin issue. Inflammation in the joints, joint issues. Inflammation in the brain, brain issues. Inflammation in the muscles, muscle issues.

If you ever use a steroid medicine and it helps, you should ask yourself “Why would I need a steroid from the outside. Why am I not making enough steroids on the inside. Why is my cortisol not able to do its work.”

There are several testing companies that provide saliva cortisol testing kits. Personally, I like Genova the best. This is not a test that can be run in a hospital or local laboratory. A person gets a testing kit. Spits into a small vial at 7 AM, noon, 5 PM and 10 PM. All in a single day at home. The vials are mailed off. Results are available usually within two weeks. It can’t be much more simple than that.

Cortisol likes to throw off all the other hormones. Our whole “hormone symphony”. If a young woman who has just started her menstrual cycles, immediately has heavy flows or bad cramps or bad PMS, I’m always thinking cortisol was thrown off for a while before this time. The disturbed cortisol has been just waiting to throw off the sex hormone balance when that balance finally becomes important. When the menstrual cycles start.

Anytime someone has been told their thyroid is off but they don’t get an amazing positive change in multiple areas of the body after starting thyroid medicine, I’m thinking cortisol is off. Cortisol is throwing off the thyroid and making it impossible to get the full bang for your thyroid restoration efforts.

The classic thyroid situation tends to go like this. A thyroid medicine is started in a person who doesn’t feel very well. Maybe someone who has every symptom you can possibly get when your thyroid is low. The medicine started will typically be “Synthroid” or “Levothyroxine”. The person doesn’t feel a lot better. The medicine dose is increased. But instead of feeling better, the person actually feels worse. Then the person is told, “Well, one thing we know for sure is you don’t need more thyroid hormone medicine.” Well, actually you do but because cortisol has not been addressed for at least a month before starting the thyroid restoration therapy, you’re never going to get any bang for your thyroid effort. Then you’re stuck with all those low thyroid symptoms even though you may still be on one of these medicines.

So the next time you find yourself using a steroid medicine and it helps, think cortisol. The next time you start a thyroid medicine but it doesn’t help “an absolute ton”, think cortisol. If you find it hard to fall asleep or stay asleep, particularly if your brain can’t shut down, think cortisol. But also, if you wake up at night to go the bathroom or because you’re in pain, think cortisol. If you’re tired all day long and can’t sleep at night, think cortisol. If your energy is pretty good, but you tend to “crash“ mid afternoon, think cortisol. If you have many, many health issues, think cortisol. If you tend to be “wired and tired”, think cortisol.

Seeing a doctor who specializes in functional medicine is all you need to have your cortisol levels tested and treated. Make those lifestyle changes. Then your health tends to fall into place.

Oh, also. Pets and Nature have been shown to improve cortisol levels.