How to purge the adrenaline

[DustingMyselfOff]

I've dealt with anxiety and panic attacks for decades and now thanks to a fluctuating thyroid, I go through periods where things are manageable and periods where I am almost housebound. Hopefully when my thyroid levels get stable and stay there a while I can get a grip on the fluctuating anxiety levels and find out what I need to do to get them back under control.

Right now I find that if I am experiencing generalized anxiety (work, valid stressors, etc.) that a Tranxene will alleviate most physical symptoms, but that if I am having panic attacks or need to drive on a highway, I need a Xanax. I try to avoid taking anything but sometimes it's necessary.

I was having a good morning today and feeling like I might not need any medication, and then while in traffic heard a long horn-blow in the vicinity. It made me think me or someone nearby was about to get hit so of course I had an immediately adrenaline surge. The fear subsided within seconds but the physical symptoms are still lingering a few hours later.

I'm trying to tell myself that this is just the excess adrenaline coursing through my body from the sudden "fight or flight" response I had earlier but I wonder if there's anything we can do to get it OUT of our systems quickly? I don't need the adrenaline anymore - I am safe and sound, but I'm still dizzy and shaky and anxious.

Anyone know what might help get it to leave my body or at least make it go dormant? Drink lots of water? Go run around the block? Meditate? I'm looking at it as a physical thing so I'm not sure meditating is going to remove it from my cells, but I really don't know and was hoping someonw here would.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts.
Sue

[Oosh]

Exercise ! Any exercise !
Walk up and down stairs a few times.

It's there to help you escape from the tiger that's just jumped out. It's there to help you run. A bit of exercise will pump it out of your blood stream.

[DustingMyselfOff]

Certainly makes sense that if adrenaline gives us the "fight or flight", that physical exertion would help alleviate it. I guess I need to Google and research adrenaline a little more.... is it in our blood? Does it get absorbed into all of our cells? Is it something I can flush out with lots of water? Or does it "vaporize" upon exertion?

I know those are hard to answer - pretty much just talking to myself but if anyone has thoughts on that I'd love to hear them.
Sue

[Oosh]

Adrenalin is a hormone I think. It's pumped into the blood stream in a fight or flight situation to give your body a bit of a turbo boost in order to run or fight.

Get your heart pumping with exercise and it will use it up, burn it off and leave your bloodstream clear. It won't take much. A few minutes on an exercise bike. A walk up the stairs a few times.

[chickpea]

When my anxiety was sky high and adrenaline was pumping through me for long periods at a time, I remember one particular morning when my husband was at work and I was at home looking after my young children. I felt like a caged tiger, and had an overwhelming compulsion to pace - so I pounded up and down the stairs and in and out of every room in a sort of driven trance. It was as if my legs were controlling me - I just kept stomping at speed. It was incredibly cathartic - the adrenaline was spent and I felt much calmer afterwards.

So yes, exercise helps expel adrenaline. Just march up and down the stairs repeatedly for 20 minutes.

[MyNameIsTerry]

Adrenaline is a monoamine, which is a neurotransmitter. It is made from the amino acids phenylalanine, tyrosine, tryptophan, and the thyroid hormones. It is produced in the adrenal glands but something that is interesting to us anxiety disorder sufferers is that it is also produced at the ends of the sympathetic nerve fibres where they act as chemical mediators in conveying nerve inpulses to organs. So, that makes sense why our heart & lungs are affected by it. It also makes sense that we feel our skin sensations change as the adrenaline causes tingling, especially in the extremeties. The Sympathetic Nervous System is the one that controls fight or flight. It is found in tissues as transmitted by your blood. Its half life is very short at 2 minutes which explains why panic attacks are fairly short as opposed to anxiety which seems to linger for hours afterwards. It has to be reabsorbed by your body and this takes time and the side effects of all this excess adrenaline are things like the tingling, sweating and it has an impact on emotional response in the flight or fight mechanism so while its waiting to metabolize you will find your emotional responses remain triggered.

How does it get out of your body?...urine.

Ever seen the film Crank with Jason Statham? That seen in the lift is where he gives himself a shot of far too much epinephrine, which is another name for adrenaline. He comes sprinting out of the lift and runs for ages until he tires...which is basically the adrenaline being burnt off. There are side effects of some medications that can cause this, as I found on when I went on to Duloxetine and I felt like I really needed to run as fast as I could, it was a strange urge.

Oosh is right, exercise will get rid of it because exercise burns adrenaline. The body produces adrenaline in exercise to manage the additional demand on us but eventually it starts to wane and we burn out. We can become ttired at this point and I'm betting you have experienced this after long periods of anxiety. Exercise is the natural way because it will cause your body to break it down, reabsorbe it, metabolize it into something else. Don't do exercise that means stimulating a lot of adrenaline either such as weights, HIIT, etc as you want something gentler to encourage it to go as opposed to prop it up with more or it will just take longer.

You don't need to think of exercise in the conventional sense either, anything can help and if you think about carrying stuff up and down the stairs in your house it can also provide some level of distraction.

Even muscle tensing can help. Look at an exercise called Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR). You could pull over and do that sitting in your car.

[DustingMyselfOff]

Wow, you guys have been very helpful.... tons of great information and suggestions provided - thank you!

And some of the medical scientific data had me saying "Ah HA!" a lot. I had my thyroid removed about 15 months ago and ever since we've been trying to find the perfect dose of thyroid hormone. We have been lowering it every 6 or 7 weeks and I still keep coming back as "hyper" so we will continue to lower it until we find a place where I feel good and the blood tests are in an acceptable range.

But the first "ah ha!" was that it was said that adrenaline is produced in the thyroid? I would imagine my artificial thyroid hormones might be having some affect on my nerves and every time we change my dose I go through about 4 weeks of hell, kinda like PMS on steroids and LOTS of anxiety. And, the other strange symptom I notice when changing doses is a lot of tingling on the surface of my skin......happens every time for a few weeks!

Thanks for providing such great info and helping me make sense of all this. Since I work in an office I'm not sure I can work off the adrenaline in the exact ways you suggested, but I can do a few sprints up and down the stairs or a few fast-paced laps around the office. Of course wearing heels all day is going to make it painful but it may be worth it.
Sue

[MyNameIsTerry]

You can try PMR, Sue, its just tensing and its a relaxation technique but I'm thinking my doing some tensing it might provide a release? When I used to do it, most of it just sitting down and no one can see you doing it.

Deep breathing also clears out adrenaline.


Anything physical will be better than nothing, even getting up and walking around.

The thyroid adds to the creation of adrenaline so maybe if you are generating far too much from your thyroid, it could be influencing adrenaline? Its perhaps something to ask your doctor about who will understand this far more. There does sound like a link there. It would be worth doing some Googling of that to see if there are any studies out there that could answer your questions.

Rather than adrenaline though, could it simply be that the sode you are receiving is producing the effect of hyperthyroidism?

http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Thyroid.../Symptoms.aspx

Anxiety gets a mention and if you look at the list of signs you can see that many of them mimic the experience of ramped up adrenaline.

Going back to the adrenaline thing though, thyroxine increases sympathetic activity by potentiating effects on catecholamines, adrenaline is one of these.

[DustingMyselfOff]

You're right, Terry, I had my thyroid removed because it was consistently hyper, even with all the meds to slow it down.

Now that I'm only using artificial thryoid hormones, I'm still hyper so we keep going lower and lower on the dosage, slowly. Had blood drawn yesterday, will know Tuesday what my levels are.

I'm sure a lot of my anxiety and panic is from the thyroid meds, but I can be doing OK and then get a sudden scare which products "fight or flight" and even though the mental part is gone in 30 seconds, the physical symptoms linger for hours after that (or until I take a tranquilizer).

This too shall pass..... my motto lately. Think I'll go run up and down the stairs a few times.
Sue