Bone Soul Tired - Adrenal Insufficiency ( or, Where is My Kidney Jing?)
By Dr. Janine Lex

When she was tired, my Grandmother would curl up on her colorful love seat and settle in for a recuperative rest, and say with a sigh “I’m bone soul tired.” When she proclaimed her state, we all new she was not getting up until she was refreshed and ready to carry on in her usual cheerful manner. At the time I didn’t know what would happen if she didn’t complete her restorative timeout. I just knew she consistently needed to take her feet of the ground and rested. After all “bone soul tired” must be pretty worn out.

In my professional practice, I’ve learned the wisdom of taking time out. One of the curses of our modern stream of life is that we are all over-stimulated and over-committed, leaving little energy left for true rest and restoration. This cycle can manifest in a life that has less joyful than it should be to full blown adrenal exhaustion. The adrenals supply our adaptive response to daily life stressors. When the adrenals begin to lose their power to function fully, we start to have the signs of aging and dis-ease. When you keep putting rest, restoration and yourself on the back burner your adrenals eventually lose their ability to meet
the demands of simple daily adaptive responses.

In Western medicine, Hans Selye is the champion of rest and restoration. Dr. Selye won the Nobel Prize in 1972 for his research on adaptive response. His book the “Stress of Life” is found in local libraries and is a wonderful read for anyone. He kindly describes in the last portion of his book the necessary habits to cultivate to avoid disease and premature loss of function. In simple language, he states that we are born with a bank
account of life force. From the moment we start to breath we start to spend from our supply. The size of our deposit of life energy is dictated by genetics. Repetitive stressors deplete our deposit of adaptive energy. Stressors can be physical, mental, chemical and psychic in nature. For most of us we have all of these, and some of them started in childhood with the stress of dysfunctional families, injuries, and addictions. There are ways of changing life style and thought patterns so we are not so rapidly depleting our life source. There are also some very simple ways of repleting this account of life energy. Dr Selye found that regular intervals of accessing a state of being described as brainwave pattern Theta. This brainwave pattern is found in meditation and for short times within normal sleep patterns. Normal sleep patterns included uninterrupted 8 to 9 hour regular sleep intervals.

In Traditional Chinese Medicine, it is understood that the matrix for life comes from the water element. The organs associated with this are the kidney and the bladder. Not surprisingly, this is where the adrenal gland sits, right on top to the kidney. Kidney Jing is our inherited endowment of potential for life. (Sound familiar!) When our kidney jing is spent, we are spent. There are several avenues of treatment for preventing loss of
kidney jing within the Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) approach, if timely treatment is sought. Acupuncture, herbs, and rest or decreasing activity are usually prescribed.

Through my years of private practice, I’ve seen patients slowly lose their adaptive response to daily stressors. The first sign is often low back pain and as time goes by they became more and more susceptible to infections(the common cold or flu, sinusitis)and inflammations (like tendonitis, bursitis, and joint pain). Some develop Chronic Stress Fatigue, fibromyalgia, or other diseases of the “walking wounded.” The “walking wounded” have symptoms of varied and vague origin evading diagnosis, because there are no blood titers that measure the slip sliding away of vital adaptive energy. Medical diagnosis is made based on symptoms and clinical documentation of tender points. They look and seem healthy but they are feeling their energy and life slipping away.

Family and friends may notice the patient is not himself. Psychiatrists often diagnose the patient with depression and treat them with anti-depressants, which of course help them push on through the symptoms. Chronic joint pain, reoccurring plantar fascitis and other “itis”s and fatigue are chief complaints that bring a person suffering from Adrenal Fatigue to the doctor’s office. Many times the blood titers will show inflammation or even congenital predisposition to autoimmune problems, but sometimes they show nothing. At this point the medical establishment has very little to offer.

For a person who wants to reclaim their life and is willing to make some changes, there are ways of restoring one’s bank account of life force or kidney jing. Often taking the responsibility and reclaiming your right to life is the beginning of self-discovery and recovery.

This journey starts with finding someone to guide you and help you measure the degree of depletion against the degree of toxicity. There are a wide range of testing modalities available from Chinese pulse diagnosis, to simple saliva and serum tests to thermography and computer programmed pulse meters. A complete evaluation would include assessing your digestive tract to evaluate your body’s ability to get energy from the food you eat. Emotionally destructive relationships and lifestyle patterns should be examined and modified.

Treatment then must be tailor made to each individual’s ratio of toxicity to adaptive response, their most depleting habitual drain on their energy, and the level of genetic load they have to work with at the time treatment begins. Early detection and treatment, as in all problems, makes for a quicker more complete response time.

Much of what plagues people with pain and lack of joy in living can be remedied. It may require stepping outside the box and making changes, but that is the fun in it. Change is a necessary and constant part of healthy, happy living. Feeling as if your bones and soul are totally drained is your body signaling its
time for a change. If the feeling is just beginning in your life, lay down and take a rest once a day. This is the first and oldest remedy, used by children and the wise since the dawn time. If the problem does not abate or has been going on for some time, consult your Functional Medicine practioner and begin to make changes in your lifestyle, structure, and diet that rebuild your body’s reserves.