“Adrenaline Rush” phenomenon— What helps?

I was referring to cortisol/adrenaline/stress hormones. I'm assuming that an "adrenaline rush" is when one or both of those stress hormones rise when someone is under stress. But stress is caused by all sorts of things. For example, I find birthday parties and other types of parties incredibly stressful but lots of other people might find them great fun. I must admit, I think I'm getting more and more confused about this subject.

 

They vary. They aren't as bad now as they were a few years ago. The chest pain I was getting was mostly eased by improving my nutrient levels and my thyroid hormone levels.

One of the things I don't understand is how people can tell the difference between their cortisol and their adrenaline. I've had cortisol tested but I've never had my adrenaline tested. I'm assuming that both are being produced 24 hours a day to varying degrees.

 

yes thats exactly what i have in my mind/what i'm meaning, too Arnie

i dont think we can.
I just use adrenaline, but actually "SNS-activation-and-whatever-is-happening-to-the-body-during-that", would be technically more accurate.

I call the psych/emotional induced response an adrenaline rush simply because i know that its factual that adrenaline is released in those circumstances, & that adrenaline reduces pain, so i think its a reasonable assumption that in those circs the improvement i feel is down to the adrenaline... (et al).

But whether the bodily experience we have when we have overdone it but before PEM hits (as described in the OP), is caused by adrenaline, (or cortisol or ???) I dont know whether we know that or not....

Which is why i was asking in my initial post in the thread, if we had any evidence on it, and suggesting it might be an idea not to call it that until we have good evidence to suggest it is.

Sorry i sound like i'm labouring the point now its just because i'm mentally fuzzy trying to put what i'm thinking into words which always takes me 5 times as long to explain as it really needs to (except when i'm 'adrenalined up' haha )

JemPD - champion waffler! lol

 

I don't usually use the phrase adrenaline rush for what I mean, but it does need some kind of phrase to describe it. Perhaps wired-but-tired is as good as anything we have.

For me it begins like the feeling I used to get coming out of a brilliant gig where everything fell into place—audience and performers connected, all the magic happened. It was, as Peter describes, a kind of high. I'd begin to find it a nuisance when it was 3am, I was shattered, I had work the next day, and I was still absolutely buzzing, but it still wasn't unpleasant. My over-exertion rushes aren't quite the same—there's none of the euphoria—but in other respects it's pretty similar.

It's often the next day before it turns into a distinctive ME thing, with all the cognitive bits missing (unable to organise words, movements or anything else), the shaky muscles, the ringing ears, the complete inability to sit still or concentrate because it's still driving me on. That stage does feel more like an adrenaline thing, except that all the mental clarity, the muscle power, the alertness that Jem describes—which as she says, should be there if it were a fight-or-flight response—is completely absent. It just feels like going round and round like a squirrel in a cage, never getting anywhere but unable to stop.

 

yes yes yes, exactly - the ringing ears! i forgot that! my tinnitus is sooo much louder in that phase. Such a brilliant image thats just what it feels like for me too - never getting anywhere but unable to stop.
I sometimes have to tell my carer to be very firm with me, ignoring me when i start talking etc.

Does anyone else start crying as you eventually crash out of it - ie drastic dip in mood for no reason whatsoever?
Edited to add: actually its not really as i crash out of it, its as the PEM crashes in, the symptoms come in a kind of surge - not gradual, like there is a point over maybe 5 mins where whatever it is wears off and all the symptoms that have weirdly been 'held off' come crashing in

 

I haven't experienced such an abrupt shift, but I'm less severely affected than you. Typically what happens is that I squirrel myself out eventually, fall into a fitful sleep in the early hours, then wake up with no energy and PEM starting. The drastic dip in mood is already in place by then.

 

I don't experience anything as drastic during the day but I regularly can't sit still so I keep doing things until I can't keep going which is usually around mid afternoon.

My 'adrenaline' or whatever episodes happen in the middle of the night. I regularly wake up 90 minutes to 3 hours after getting to sleep with what I have decided to call for myself Overall Agitation. I'm quickly overcome by a sensation that every cell in my body is being aggravated by something. I can't keep still and have to get up and do something. It lasts about an hour then I can sleep again. Of the hundreds of time this has happened, only once was I awake before it began. I felt a slow motion tingling moving down both arms to my fingertips then the process began.

I mentioned it to my GP years ago and she said it was a panic attack. It's not. I do feel anxious but I that follows after I've fully woken up and after the 'agitation' has started.

I do wonder if it's a whole body version of restless legs syndrome. It certainly feels like it. Of the many odd things going on with me I'm most curious about this one.

What helps? Milk with a dash of Bacardi!

 

Interesting

before I got to that line I was thinking it sounds more like restless legs type thing.

When I get those type things it tends to need either salt and water combos (ie awake a long time as body demand one then other etc) or iron. There probably are other things but I haven’t worked it out.

nit sure it’s linked to adrenaline though - fir me the term being on adrenaline is definitely about the varying experiences that come from pushing past/through empty. And then the aftermath.

so of course nothing is ever unconnected completely (v complicated if you consider PEM fir me affecting my legs etc) . I’m now trying to think of these two thinks can/do ‘overlap’ and when

 

@bobbler: Yes, it is all very complicated. It's really hard to work out connections and all too easy to make them when they don't exist.

I've been writing a daily journal for the last 25 years. Before I start writing about the more interesting stuff, I force myself to list my various ailments and thoughts about them. I hate doing it with a passion but reading back I've discovered how tempting it is to connect things that have nothing to do with each other. So many things I was convinced were The Answer.

My iron levels are fine, I drink a bit of water before sleep but I might try some salt as well just to eliminate it. Thanks for bringing it up.

 

I’m surprised that benzodiazepines have not been mentioned. They must only be used as a last resort, sparingly (i.e. not continuously) and at the lowest dosage possible to prevent physical dependence — benzodiazepine withdrawal symptoms are beyond hellish — but (unfortunately) I find them to be the only class of medication that can effectively and quickly counteract the symptoms of an “adrenaline rush”.

 

It makes me wonder slightly when you think of other generations where such things seemed to be more run of the mill seeming (but maybe that’s just tv books etc) of eg ladies taking a Valium

thats what I’m having to base my guess at what those meds would be like - I’ve no clue?

I can’t think of a time in the Uk where me describing these symptoms would be believed snd not interpreted incorrectly as something like panic or psych type (I’ve a BSc psychology so it’s not based on rumour u say this, I find it fascinating when you sit across an hcp who has no expert in that over-ruling your knowledge for their storytelling or behavioural presumption when they have no real expertise in it simply because they are stumped by a gap in their area and it gif filled by that one-pager in a short course or website for them etc)

or a time in my lifetime where asking for such prescriptions wouldn’t be seen as a red flag. Or would have been given out.

these are all based in generic assumptions/ presumption of course and certain obsessions healthcare has tgat everyone must be drug seeking and just like ideas most ill health can be cured if people behaved right the area let itself fall into as a fallacy.

But anyway I think it’s perhaps not mentioned because of a gap in access. And in those who do offer it there’s no consistency so comparing outcomes even informally for ME isn’t possible.

And many wouldn’t try it without decent medical advice.

Perhaps it would need a greater skill set too than Uk medicine really has of recent times too. Between pain clinics if very varying flavours of skill / focus and then it’s go and pharmacist but without that consistent relationship. And no proper ME/CFS clinic. I wonder who it would be who’d suggest it.

I don’t know much about it all and the issues with the old days vs eg opioid epidemic type stuff now to know if baby got thrown out with bath water in the ebb and tide of ‘initiatives’ being all bad or all good overwhelming wgat might have needed nuanced understanding that something like ME is at the bottom of the list for. Particularly until that disgusting 2007 guideline of bigotry stops being ‘used’ (as an excuse).

but given where we are how does the new guidelines cover these things?

 

I do think adrenaline is involved in these events because I get similar symptoms due to sensitivity to dental local anaesthesia which contains it. There was an old thread many years ago of others saying the same thing on the previous forum.

 

I get what I call “adrenaline rush” and it’s very occasional and absolutely out of nowhere. My body starts to feel like after you’ve trapped a finger in a door, or had a terrible pain/shock/injury, the pain has gone but all the adrenaline is still coursing, breathing fast, you get jittery, I feel like a chocolate bar or sweet drink might help (it doesn’t though) I’d say it gets to near dissociative state and it just won’t calm down until it runs it’s course. I’ve never been able to identify a trigger.

 

I think you talked about ‘very delayed PEM’ before, but can’t find it, what is that to you? Thank you!

 

@butter.

I don't recall saying 'very' delayed PEM. I get delayed PEM 13-16hrs after exercise when I go over my limit.