Legenden1999 said:
Yes, I know it exists, but according to many of the doctors I have seen, there is no such thing as a illness called "adrenal fatigue", cause it has not (yet) been scientifically proved, and there is no ICD-10 code for it. This has made me wonder. How come is this syndrome not more recognised amoung doctors? If it has been known by some dotors for a long time, why has nobody done a study on it? and why has noone tried to get it internationally known, and gotten an ICD-10 code for it?
Any thoughts?
JH
Adrenal fatigue use to be well known in medicine in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
One problem is that lab tests were developed to measure cortisol and other hormone levels.
Another problem is that endocrinology was developed as a specialty which recognizes only the extremes of hormonal deficiency or excesses as illnesses. Generally, this means only the bottom 2.5 percent and top 2.5 percent of people (those exceeding the reference range) are considered ill. Most of medicine has decided to follow along with this idea of what an illness is.
And another problem is that medicine was designated to treat illnesses. To prescribe something, it has to be for a recognized "illness". Unfortunately, many conditions are not recognized as illnesses. Treating these conditions prevents the development of illness. But medicine hasn't progressed to the point of thinking about promoting "wellness" as opposed to treating illness.
Despite all the talk about doing more preventative medicine, such as preventing heart attacks and strokes, etc., doctors do little preventative medicine. To do so risks being considered doing malpractice because there is no defined "illness" being treated. Lawyers have to be blamed for this.
For example, there is no "illness" called Insulin Resistance. This is also called "pre-diabetes". There is no ICD number for insulin resistance. There is one for elevated fasting glucose. But this is not an illness.
For coding adrenal fatigue, I just use the code for Other Specified Disorders of the Adrenal Glands - which I call Adrenal Fatigue.
Studies are very expensive to do. Few people other than drug companies can afford to do large studies.
There are studies on adrenal fatigue. One, for example, was a study in the American Journal of Psychiatry, where patients with posttraumatic stress disorder were treated with 10 mg a day of hydrocortisone. The patients improved. Unfortunately, the authors of the article - being unfamiliar with endocrinology - made the wrong conclusions.
Posttraumatic Stress disorder is the poster child for adrenal fatigue. There are numerous articles on how low cortisol levels are in PTSD. However, because conventional psychiatrists are overly focused on neuron function, they cannot see how the adrenal glands are the primary organs affected by PTSD. Treatment with cortisol is not a recognized treatment of PTSD as a result.
Chronic and severe stresses can also create a hormonal picture of PTSD with the same symptoms. However, the suffering person won't be diagnosed with PTSD sicne the stress is not life threatening.
