Dr. Josh Axe

Okay.

But that's not to say copper IUDs aren't going to cause an issue because it's going to imbalance zinc in the body when you have that much copper, and that's going to cause a whole other problem.

Yeah, yeah.

And by the way, I've struggled with the same thing myself.

You know, like when I was in my first two years of functional medicine practice in Nashville, I was working 60 to 80 hours a week, going really hard at it.

And then I started having digestive issues.

like loose stool, skin rashes, all kinds of problems.

And I thought, well, I'm eating like perfectly, so what's going on here?

And then I met an acupuncturist and started getting really turned on to Chinese medicine.

And I started learning about other ways of evaluating the body, not just doing blood work,

but also feeling the pulse, looking at the tongue, looking at some different symptoms that might correlate with other things and realizing, okay, my issue is not a nutrient deficiency, it's a rest deficiency.

Like I'm just doing too much all day long and it's burning up my body.

You know, adrenal fatigue, I would say, in terms of diagnosis, it's an interesting diagnosis.

I think generally, though, the way that we would look at, we would test to see what's off is really looking at cortisol.

People can do what's called a four-point hormone test where they're looking at saliva levels, and that's going to tell you where your cortisol is at at different times of the day.

But I would say if you're having a major cortisol imbalance, that tends to be kind of what I'm, more along the lines of what I'm referencing.

And one thing people don't realize is cortisol is kind of your body's master hormone.

Cortisol is the hormone that is most impacted by stress or living an unhealthy lifestyle.

When cortisol goes up too high or too low at the wrong time of day, that's gonna cause insulin to go high.

When insulin gets high, then that's gonna impact everything.