cortisol and ED

[fixme]

Hi,

I was going through some old lab tests and found that my Cortisol, measured at 8AM, was a the very upper range of the normal range. From reading the articles here, I learned that cortisol can affect sexual performance.  Although I'm not out of range, I am assuming that cortisol will rise throughout the day, so I would probably be above the normal range by afternoon.

Any advice on what this means with respect to ED and how to reduce cortisol?

[PeakT]

I have lots of info on this:

http://www.peaktestosterone.com/Hdr_Cortisol.aspx

Imo meditation and PMR are huge helps.  I have read great thing about Cognitive Behavioral Therapy as well but don't know much about it yet.  Some of the guys know about it first hand and hopefully they will chime in.

Now what I have are many of the standard natural treatments.  You do want a physician to check you out to make sure there is not a medical issue of course.

And, by the way, just call me Captain Anxiety at your service...

And I believe you are correct that if cortisol starts high it will tend to end higher, but Sam is our resident expert.  Hopefully, he'll chime in here...

[bergertime]

I did CBT a couple of years ago.  It was helpful.  Made me look at things in a different way.

[PeakT]

I did CBT a couple of years ago.  It was helpful.  Made me look at things in a different way.

Well, I'd love to hear more. 

I keep reading studies that show improvements in key areas that many men struggle with.  But there's not a lot of info on the actual techniques out there from what I've seen, so, if you've got some info, you might want to post it. 

We just had someone who posted about a good experience, but I can't find the thread for some reason.

[davie12]

Hi,

I was going through some old lab tests and found that my Cortisol, measured at 8AM, was a the very upper range of the normal range. From reading the articles here, I learned that cortisol can affect sexual performance.  Although I'm not out of range, I am assuming that cortisol will rise throughout the day, so I would probably be above the normal range by afternoon.

Any advice on what this means with respect to ED and how to reduce cortisol?

Keep in mind that elevated Cortisol due to either mental or physical stress will suppress the testosterone precursor hormones such as DHEA & Pregnenolone. This will trickle down to reducing the production of testosterone which in turn can cause loss of libido & ED. I've gotten more familiar with this adrenal cascade, as I'm pretty certain physical stress caused some of my problems and a recent DHEA blood test seems to corroborate this fact. I'm going to see a doctor about this, but in the meantime extremely healthy living (sleep, diet & the right type of exercise) can improve this situation quite a bit.

[PeakT]

Keep in mind that elevated Cortisol due to either mental or physical stress will suppress the testosterone precursor hormones such as DHEA & Pregnenolone. This will trickle down to reducing the production of testosterone which in turn can cause loss of libido & ED. I've gotten more familiar with this adrenal cascade, as I'm pretty certain physical stress caused some of my problems and a recent DHEA blood test seems to corroborate this fact. I'm going to see a doctor about this, but in the meantime extremely healthy living (sleep, diet & the right type of exercise) can improve this situation quite a bit.

Yeah, and I'll bet a number of us have had this happen:  a stressor went away in your life and instantly your mood, libido and energy increased dramatically and almost instantly.  There's something short term that goes on as well, but I haven't found a good explanation for that. 

[davie12]

Keep in mind that elevated Cortisol due to either mental or physical stress will suppress the testosterone precursor hormones such as DHEA & Pregnenolone. This will trickle down to reducing the production of testosterone which in turn can cause loss of libido & ED. I've gotten more familiar with this adrenal cascade, as I'm pretty certain physical stress caused some of my problems and a recent DHEA blood test seems to corroborate this fact. I'm going to see a doctor about this, but in the meantime extremely healthy living (sleep, diet & the right type of exercise) can improve this situation quite a bit.

Yeah, and I'll bet a number of us have had this happen:  a stressor went away in your life and instantly your mood, libido and energy increased dramatically and almost instantly.  There's something short term that goes on as well, but I haven't found a good explanation for that.

For me, the stress that caused the acute incident is gone. However, it appears the time for adrenal recovery and hormone normalization can be months. A lot of websites that talk about this focus on the importance of plenty of refreshing sleep, diet & exercise. Some websites recovering from this can take a year. Do you think things like DHEA & Pregnenolone, etc. can rise naturally with extremely good lifestyle habits? I'm going to stay on this path and possibly get one of those comprehensive adrenal blood panels in a few weeks to monitor progress.

[PeakT]

Do you think things like DHEA & Pregnenolone, etc. can rise naturally with extremely good lifestyle habits?

Gotcha.  Well, yes, I absolutely think the body can readapt and heal itself generally speaking.  Now that isn't always the case, because sometimes there is irreversible damage - we have to be honest with ourselves.  This is where the physicians come in imo:  helping us when we have damaged tissues.  Good physicians come up with the best possible solutions and explain risks.  Bad physicians make the situation even worse and explain almost nothing to the patient.

But, yes, all the hormones can rise and fall with lifestyle generally from what I have seen.

If you do experiment with actual testing, I'd love to see you post your results!

[Festus]

Just a quick chime-in here to say that in my experience, extreme emotional stress in a negative way is far and away the worst thing for all things T-related and the opposite is also true in a positive way. I have had the good fortune/misfortune to experience both. The negative aspect of this seemed to be something which never completely recovered (and it seemed to switch my T peak to be more morning-focused and far less evening-focused than was the case before, something I'd be especially interested to hear if there is an approach to revert back to a more even balance throughout the day.) Also, from what I know from Doctors who specialize in this sort of thing, the brain is very quick to develop positive or negative self-reinforcing pathways, so whatever is necessary, natural or unnatural, to quickly break a negative cycle, is a good place to start before working on longer-term solutions.

[PeakT]

Just a quick chime-in here to say that in my experience, extreme emotional stress in a negative way is far and away the worst thing for all things T-related and the opposite is also true in a positive way. I have had the good fortune/misfortune to experience both. The negative aspect of this seemed to be something which never completely recovered (and it seemed to switch my T peak to be more morning-focused and far less evening-focused than was the case before, something I'd be especially interested to hear if there is an approach to revert back to a more even balance throughout the day.) Also, from what I know from Doctors who specialize in this sort of thing, the brain is very quick to develop positive or negative self-reinforcing pathways, so whatever is necessary, natural or unnatural, to quickly break a negative cycle, is a good place to start before working on longer-term solutions.

Great post. One theory about the evening issues is thatvit is related to adrenal function.  I'll let Sam talk about that.
Also a lot of research shows that the brain under stress alters itself very negatively. Basically some of the good stuff dies and the bad stuff enlargens.

They are just now unraveling all of this

[Sam]

Cortisol increases to a max while you sleep and then slowly drops off over the course of the day, known as a Diurnal Cycle.

Let me say,  that I am by no means an expert in this,  I just had low cortisol and spent months working through natural ways to raise my cortisol to healthy levels.   The number I kept seeing was around 16 as a target for am-cortisol.   The import thing however is that your body follows a normal diurnal cycle.   Some people experience sleep disturbances because they get cortisol spikes in the middle of the night.

It sounds like you are more concerned about keeping your cortisol levels lower, but I would caution you to aim for healthy cortisol levels.   The 4 point saliva test is the gold standard here for most integrative medicine docs, and you can get this through ZRT labs and many others.

Here is a good study that talks about the impact of low cortisol levels and anti-social behavior, and it also has some good general info about cortisol cycles etc.

http://www.nature.com/npp/journal/v32/n7/full/1301289a.html

Here is a good synopsis of the stages of Adrenal Fatigue

http://www.thyroidhelp.org/forums/showthread.php?1826-Adrenal-Fatigue-Seven-Stages-Stage-1

If you feel stressed out and your levels have been creeping up, it could be that you are overworking your adrenals and you might consider taking action to manage stress better.

Mind you,  most traditional docs don't recognize adrenal fatigue and in my opinion that is because they are right that it is often the result of some other condition going on in someone's life, so not in itself a diagnosable disease like Addison's is when the Adrenal's don't respond to ACTH.  The problem with this however is that traditional docs still don't treat the whole patient and if there tests show normal results they move on looking for a disease to treat.   This often leaves patients feeling like hypochondriacs during the process.  For me the big question is what was the nucleus of the stress's that lead to the low functioning adrenal condition, is it psychological or physiological.  Did it start out as physiological and then become complicated due to an untreated condition causing a psychological complication.   Our Western medicine system is not equipped to unravel the complexity of these diagnoses and therefore it requires an open minded doctor and a patient committed to his/her overall health.   In my opinion.

STTM also has a good page on Adrenal Fatigue

http://www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/adrenal-info/


Hope this helps,  let me know if I missed what you were asking.

[Festus]

Very interesting. Thanks, Sam. I will check these out....