How Stress And Liver Issues Cause Hot Flashes

A comment from Steve in 30 Symptoms of Adrenal Fatigue — paraphrased:

I read your article and thought I have alot of those symptoms. I am vegetarian (sometimes I eat cheese but rarely eat eggs, meat, or diary) because of IBS. Which really is annoying. Anyway 1/3 of my diet used to be potato chips and candies. I craved them all the time. I gained alot of weight over the last 2 years and decided that it was time to lose it. I was too heavy and didn’t like the way I felt so I went on this crash diet during the winter for 3 1/2 months. I cut back from eating 3 or more meals a day to 1 to 2 meals a day. I stayed up all night playing video games and would sleep most of the day. I rarely got out of the house and my nutrition was poor. I cut back on the chips and candy.

Come April I decided it was time to start exercising and completely alter my diet. (I was 30 pounds lighter now). I switched to a vegan diet eating whole vegetables, grains, lots of gardenburgers with some nuts.

He goes on to describe symptoms of hot flashes, irritable bowl syndrome (IBS), panic attack type symptoms and insomnia. The doctors put him on antidepressants because everything else was “normal.”

You can read the entire comment on 30 symptoms of adrenal fatigue.

My response:

Steve,

One possible explanation for what you have going on does have to do with adrenal fatigue and a failure of the liver to completely breakdown hormones.

When the body is functioning normally, hormones are created, used and discarded after they have done their job. This includes stress hormones and estrogens. Yes, male bodies have estrogens too.

Stress is caused by many different factors. Diet is the main one for most occupants of modern cultures where sugar and processed foods are easily attainable. Note: going hungry causes generally the same physiological effects that eating junk food does. Emotions are probably the second most common cause of stress. Exercise is another stressor that can contribute to the issue. Environmental toxins are probably the final contributor. Each of these issues are a conversation in themselves. I plan on covering factors other than diet, which I have covered fairly well, in the future.

Adrenal fatigue is a vicious cycle having to do with how stress causes the release of stress hormones which makes the body feel that it is under stress, so more stress hormones are released, etc. It is often more important to stop this cycle at the stress input level than to strengthen the adrenal glands themselves.

This adrenal cycle causes adrenal fatigue and the associated symptoms like your panic attacks and IBS.

Ideally, when under stress, the stress hormones are broken down by the liver. This is also where estrogens are broken down.

Estrogen dominance causes hot flashes.

So, when the liver has extra stress hormones to break down the estrogens don’t get broken down as they should leaving you with excess estrogens and the associated hot flashes.

As to your IBS, that is often caused by adrenal fatigue, but there are often complications. The fight or flight response is the main one.

Flight or flight causes all digestion to shut down, the immune system to quit, cellular repair to stop and the sexual functions to turn off. Nothing is more important than getting away from something that is immediately life threatening.

The problem is that we get stuck in this state. Our evolutionary ancestors hid in a cave or the top of a tree whimpering and crying until the issue was released and forgotten. In modern society we have to stand and face the threat while forcing down our instinctual reaction to run or lash out. Consequently, the emotions get stuck in the body causing us to be stuck in an internal fight flight reaction that has nowhere to go.

Outside intervention is needed to deal with this. There are emotional clearing techniques like emotional freedom technique, but you need to know which emotions to clear. I do this through muscle testing. I’ve been trying to think of how to help people find the emotions to clear for themselves, but there isn’t an easy way to do this short of teaching how to do muscle testing which requires some skill.

Another possiblility that I have been working on is using relaxing herbs to calm the part of the brain that continues to feel in stress so that fight flight can be released.

There are many issues that are caused by adrenal fatigue and by the factors that cause adrenal fatigue. Probably the best thing to do in this case is to take calming and relaxing herbs. Complexes made from the whole herb in powder form are generally the best.

And, animal protein is essential for most people’s health. I hope you can get to the point where there isn’t a problem eating it. Why eating animal protein is so important and why vegetarianism doesn’t work for most people is a whole other subject.

Meet the Author

Kalidasa

Hello and welcome to my blog! There are several reasons I decided to start writing a blog on natural self-healing. The main thing I want to do is to share information on health and healing so that people can take action to heal themselves using natural techniques. I have met so many people who couldn't afford natural health care. They may have had health insurance, but they didn't trust that model. Many people want to know how to be healthy naturally. They want to know what really works and what doesn't. They want to be health conscious and often fail because of poor information, lack of knowledge, bad science and other factors. This blog is intended to help demystify the body and its various functions and to help people understand what is really needed to obtain optimum health. One of the great things about knowledge of the body is that once you know and understand how it works it becomes easy to know what the right things to do for it. And, it is much easier to do the right things when the consequences of the wrong things are fully understood. To do this I will be drawing from the knowledge of many people that I have learned from. I will talk about biochemistry relating that to what is needed to obtain optimum health. There will be information about the physical structure of the body and how to keep that aligned and functioning well. A major part of yoga has to do with health, so information about yogic techniques will be included. Mental and emotional health are important for the health of the body/mind, so articles about these topics will be included. And, there will be an occasional article about me and what I am up to. Hopefully I can relate that back to some health issue as well. The title Self Adjusting Technique comes from my technique for self-adjusting the structural part of the body, that is adjusting the body's various vertebrae and joints. For this blog it will include the idea of how to adjust health issues for yourself and those you care about. With a little knowledge there is a lot people can do to help heal themselves and stay healthy. I want to explain complex information about the body in a way that is easy to understand and useful. The comments section will help in that goal as people can ask for clarification if there is something they don't understand. And maybe we can get some helpful input from people smarter than me that will benefit us all. I hope you find information that can help you with your health issues. Kalidasa

8 comments… add one
  • Surfer Aug 25, 2009, 5:21 pm

    Nice Article bro!
    You mentioned you have been trying to think of how to help people find the emotions to clear for themselves. I recommend reading the books called “The Emotion Code” by Bradley Nelson and “Matrix Energetics” by Richard Bartlett. Both are awesome read. There are many other magical healing modalities which are starting to come out open in the mainstream. Guess, people are ready for them now.

  • sarah Dec 2, 2009, 8:55 am

    Kalidasa, I am curious about animal protein. Without it my adrenal glands go haywire and other type of proteins do not help them.
    What is the bodily logic behind this?

  • Kalidasa Dec 2, 2009, 9:14 am

    Sarah,
    You are so right, animal protein is needed by all body types — there are 25 of them according to Carolyn Mein, in order to heal. The main issue with animal protein versus vegetable protein is that most body types don’t have the enzymes to break down the vegetable protein into usable amino acids. Taking two capsules of extra strength bromelain supplies the needed enzymes, but even that doesn’t work well when healing because some amino acids are in short supply no mater the vegetable source.

  • Kalidasa Dec 2, 2009, 9:15 am

    Surfer,
    The emotion code is a good way to deal with emotions. The problem I am having is how to teach people to muscle test accurately. I’m getting closer though.

  • dapidan Jan 6, 2011, 11:29 am

    Am a 32 year old female and I have all the symptoms steve mentioned. The one that bothers me most is the hot flashes. It just seems to stay with me constantly affecting everything I do from a simple task of walking to answering the phone. I feel fatigued easily and have heart palpitations frm trying to carry out the simplest of tasks. The hot flashes started after I took a flagyl intravenous for treating kidney infection. I felt this thight pain in my chest anytime I had the I.v. Immediately after that, those symptoms started. I also developed a bad ulcer and irritable bowel syndrome. I have been going from doctor to doctor, run several test and all came back ok. But I know what I feel, and no matter how I try to explain it, no one really understands. I had to quit my bank job cos I could not cope with the stress and all my symptoms. if my liver was affected, I really need advice on what to do cos am so depressed. Am suprised with the way I stay away frm pple cos any little thing triggers my symptoms, I still have the loving suport of friends and family. I really gained a lot from this site. Thanks so so much.

  • Kalidasa Jan 10, 2011, 10:59 am

    Dapidan, If the ulcer is in the stomach it can be cured in 10 days by drinking two cups of Brassica Tea a day for those ten days. Get plenty, it’s really good for you. Any flavor is fine though I recommend skipping the black and green tea. I like the Red Bush best.

    The hot flashes can probably be cured by using Chaste Tree also called Vitanox. MediHerb has the best, but you may find Kroeger brand locally if you don’t want to wait for shipping. Also a calming herb may be in order if the adrenals are involved — it’s hard to tell. Stop all grains too, maybe try the elimination diet. And, there may be a liver detoxification issue.

    Lastly, your body is in severe fight or flight. Calming herbs may help, but a treatment could really help. Use the contact tab above to send me your phone number or use the button at the bottom of the page to call me.

  • Sherry Feb 27, 2020, 12:20 am

    When I do a liver cleanse (milk thistle) or take liver supporting herbs (liver care by Himalaya) I get extreme hot flashes. Do you know why this would happen? Do you think it might calm down if I stay on them? I really feel like I need to cleanse but my hot flashes are so much worse when I’m taking them.

  • Kalidasa Mar 16, 2020, 2:04 pm

    I am not sure about this one. It really doesn’t make sense that either of these would cause hot flashes. But, black cohosh is great for eliminating hot flashes in many cases, so the only thing I can think of is to take some with the liver supporting herbs.

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