“Adrenaline Rush” phenomenon— What helps?

JemPD said:
When you say we are talking about "the same thing" do you mean that we both mean the same thing by the term 'adrenaline rush'?
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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.
 
JemPD said:
When you have the 'tachycardia etc' experience how are your pain levels?
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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.
 
Arnie Pye said:
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.
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yes thats exactly what i have in my mind/what i'm meaning, too Arnie

Arnie Pye said:
One of the things I don't understand is how people can tell the difference between their cortisol and their adrenaline.
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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 :rolleyes: 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 :D)

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.
 
Kitty said:
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... 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.
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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
 
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JemPD said:
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
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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. :ill:
 
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!
 
oldtimer said:
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!
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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:rolleyes:.

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”.
 
cassava7 said:
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”.
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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.
 
Yann04 said:
A significant subset (NIH CPET study estimated at 25%) of people with ME experience a phenomenon colloquially described as an “adrenaline rush” during and after overexertion, but before PEM begins. This is characterised by a rush of “fake energy” giving symptoms such as tatycardia, muscle tremors, feeling of overheating etc.

This is definitely not a fun phenomenon, as it significantly worsens the crash and is impossible to “turn off”.

I’m starting this thread to discuss how people manage these events, and what they’ve found helps.

For me:
Helps a lot: Continuing to pace rest (despite insticts) ie. stop feeding the adrenaline rush
Helps a decent amount: Benzodiazepines (althogh tolerance is a big risk here)
Helps a tiny bit: Melatonin, Beta blockers, CBD, Mast-cell stabilisers
Doesn’t help: Breathing exercises, compression garnments

Medications I’m curious if would help (has anyone tried?): Clonidine, Alpha Blockers, Calcium channel blockers, Dessmopresin, Gabapentin etc.

I’d be very grateful it anyone has tips or insight, I think this is the main factor in why I am continually declining in physical functioning.
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I think this is more or less what I refer to as PEM for myself. It may or may not be followed by a crash for a day or so, but the "wired" or often overheating feeling are more predictable, and the most unpleasant of my cluster of symptoms that may or may not be called PEM by others!

What helps me. I haven't tried all of those things you mention but temazepam (and probably other benzos) is the most useful prescription med I've had to deal with it. Sometimes with some codeine, though the benzo is the more helpful.

Sometimes immersion in a cool bath can take the edge off. Or at least a wet towel over my neck if the overheating feeling is there.
 
Who knows if adrenaline is involved in this feeling, but does the fact that benzodiazepines help (some of us) suggest that GABA/Glutamate issues could part of it?

I have no idea but was intrigued to find that other GABA modulating products have been introduced recently, if for a different purpose!

OK, I know linking to something from the Guardian Lifestyle section is lowering the tone somewhat, but I am interested in views on this

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeand...wer-to-better-sleep-sobriety-and-less-anxiety
 
Leila said:
Does anyone have a theory on why the impaired judgement occurs?

Is it just a "I just want to finish this/ I've missed out on so much/ seize the day" thing or do adrenaline and endorphins really impair judgment on a chemical level like when you're intoxicated?
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this is a good question and it has made me think that there isn't just one thing like this. I used to have to basically work in this mode a lot and my judgement certainly wasn't impaired, more like at best being in the zone but after a long enough period of time you realise that you weren't really as it affects sleep and PEM and all sorts but those connections take a while.

One the other hand there is indeed something else where I wouldn't say 'high' but things can start bordering on excited or restless.

The main impairment of judgement is mainly only in the judgement of my body's needs ie it wiping out that feedback loop temporarily that we learn we needed to have in order to not end up broken pretty quickly and much worse long term. I say that with certitude (that it isn't the 'light saying that the body is empty' that is faulty and turning on for no reason) because of how I have been one of those with no choice but to push through to and beyond my limits and do some really bonkers things to force my body to turn up based on living in a world surrounded by people who just didn't want to hear it on any of these things. It was that continual overdoing it that broke my body from the point it was to the point it now is.

But of course I think we also have to note how bathed we all are, but some of us to extreme levels, very deliberately, in a real bigotry designed to gaslight us and manipulate us out of hearing our own body and its needs.

I think the sense of 'high' is mainly just not being in pain for once. I mean thinking and talking is actual painful if I had to be accurate on the symptom of where that gets to. It's a level of exhaustion well people can't imagine even if they had a week doing ridiculous days on their feet talking continually to people for 16hrs and had the flu during that - then they need to imagine that carrying on forever and where the 'can't even stand to hear the tv or string words together to answer someone asking a question about dinner headache' and 'my eyes even hurt in their sockets' goes to beyond that. And the bone deep aches and so on.

To then have that lightness of that lifting or be lifted from it so the body feels lighter temporarily well I suspect the only ones we'd have a chance of an anology getting through would be those who have been through some serious nasty illnesses and asking them to imagine how they'd feel if they suddenly surprisingly got handed a good few hours where all those symptoms just weren't there in that magnitude.

I kind of think of that scene from the original film of Charlie and the chocolate factory when grandpa gets out of bed and dances for some reason but it has been a long time since I've watched it so ..


But then there is a point where I should be fast asleep but the over-threshold hasn't stopped to the point where I'm in rest-mode yet and everythign, particularly my brain and my jaw when talking is absolutely at its max and yet someone is asking me questions and not letting it drop - I've learned with time this is normally actually (if it isn't me choosing the situation of keeping going after having fatiguability for some reason) people knowing deep down that they are taking advantage, because I've studied that it only but consistently is done by people with certain personality types/certain people, yes I've been studying my friends and acquaintances closely over the past 7yrs (because strangely whilst my function goes my ability to be picking things up in my attention just not processing it until later, after I have rested, is weirdly there so I have a sort of forensic video to play back even though I can't stop myself talking at the time or manage the situation).

Those people (who push the buttons even when I've told them and given them boundaries explicitly before so could be fully aware and choose to ignore them/won't hear them) are the ones who tend to want to infer that situation is 'impaired judgement/mental capacity' when it is actually them perhaps inadvertently (in the sense of they have the wrong end of the stick what it is) playing a disabled person who just at that point can't do the 'cognitive dance' of replying with words and being considered rather than 'just replying' (but is certainly not without capacity if not being taken advantage of by this) if being forced to answer quickly, spoken at fast, having words put in their mouth - it is a very different thing. And feels literally like someone is deliberately pushing the pedal with their foot and they know it. then acting surprised but not being.

And something I really do feel that if we had good advocates and law people should be absolutely on the case to stop from happenning or help have a sheet for this situation (although of course hard to get right without running the risks above of making things worse if it was misinterpreted).
 
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I also get a hormone rush - I assume that’s what it is, no idea really - usually during PMT for a few hours I feel like the Incredible Hulk, I really need to go for a run/long walk/clean the whole house, and I can. Feel able to undertake feats of strength, would have an go at lifting a car if the opportunity was there! Obviously I shouldn’t because we all know what happens if I do, but occasionally I have given in and walked to a shop and back.
 
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