Q: I'm 79 years old. I scored an 11 on the adrenal assessment. Funds are tight and I live in NJ. What self-testing protocols do you suggest? I've been exhausted for years. I was a physical educator and want to be active again.
A: One thing you can do is to first test your blood pressure. For many people, if it tends to be on the low side (below 120 and 80), it is a sign that they might have adrenal issues.
There are other ways of testing it. If you're lying down and you feel faint or lightheaded when you get up very quickly, that could be a potential sign and symptom. If your eyes have a hard time adjusting to light and you always need sunglasses when it's bright outside, it could be a sign of adrenal issues as well. Feeling irritable, experiencing unstable temperatures could also be symptoms. Then there is “the whole bag of chips test”, craving salty foods, which is another potential sign and symptom. I recommend tracking all these symptoms through the program.
There are additional adrenal saliva tests and the DUTCH tests that can be very helpful to address adrenal issues. However, I find that this program can help about 80% of people feel significantly better. So, they may not need to find those tests and then find the physicians that know how to interpret them, and spend their time and resources on that. However, if after the program you still need to do a little bit of work, those are some options that I'm going to share in week five and six with you.