Alexia had a lot going one when she came to see me for her initial consult. She was 24 years old, freshly graduated and about to get married. The problem was she felt it was all too much and she couldn’t handle everything at once – even though they were positive stressors. She was becoming irritable and negative. Her brain fog and memory were getting worse and worse and all of this was straining the relationship already.
Not only that she would have to use laxatives to use the restroom. She had heard of ‘adrenal fatigue’ on the internet and started to consider it more.
As we were discussing her case she bounced around from subject to subject and her hands were shaky. I also noticed that she talked fast, but was forgetful a lot of the time. She complained that sleep didn’t help when she got more than enough of it.
During her initial consultation, she confided in me that she had used several different kinds of drugs throughout college and she hadn’t felt the same since. She also loved the outdoors and would love to go hiking and camping with her fiancé when time and energy allowed it.
After talking in more detail, we decided to see what were some hidden sources of stress in her life. A lot of 24 year olds have recently graduated and are getting married without these negative health consequences. I explained to her that stress is like a bucket with several faucets dumping into it – so let’s try and shut off some faucets she doesn’t know is causing her bucket to overflow.
Based on her testing we could see her brain was having trouble controlling her stress response and sleep/wake cycle.
