Are My Hot Flashes Caused by Hormones or Lyme Co-Infection Issues?

Video Transcript:

Today’s question comes from John C., “How can you tell if hot flashes are hormonal acidosis or Lyme co-infection issues?” John, that is such a great question and it is honestly very hard to tell, many times, where the sources of hot flashes are coming from within your body.

Test…Don’t Guess

Honestly, what I recommend is to test and not guess. And to also set up appointments with those sort of clinicians that might be working with you in hormones, or maybe your primary care provider that’s working with you with Lyme. But, to ensure that we evaluate the body’s metrics in a whole assortment of things.

Get a Full Hormonal Panel

I’m going to recommend a few tests that you might want to have run. The first, if you’re not sure if it’s hormonal, let’s identify your hormones, a full hormone panel. That involves assessing your reproductive hormones, and for men and women, this includes estrogen, testosterone, and progesterone.

Many men think that they might not be producing estrogen and progesterone and in fact, they are. Just not at the levels like women and their cycles are very different. But, you are testing that. Sometimes, men will present with elevations in estrogen. There are three types of estrogens that we want to test. Those are some things to consider that might be behind hot flashes.

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Get A Full Thyroid Panel

Another value to have tested is your thyroid, a full thyroid panel. Let’s rule out Hashimoto’s, because your thyroid gland, if it is in a hypo state, that can cause you to feel cold and hot in different parts of your body. So, you might have cold hands or feet, but you might be feeling really hot in the torso. If you’re feeling a torso hot flash, it might be thyroid-related.

Get Your C-Reactive Protein Value: An Inflammatory Biomarker

Another value to address is c-reactive protein. This is just a really good biomarker of any inflammatory state within the body. That helps us understand, are we dealing with maybe an infection or are we dealing with any type of underlying disease or inflammatory state that we need to address?

Sometimes, c-reactive protein is run by cardiologists, because it’s often a biomarker for heart disease. But, it can be also a marker of inflammation in a knee, or arthritis, or a Lyme scenario. Get that value for sure.

Test Your Cortisol Levels

Then, another hormone panel to have run is to test your cortisol saliva. At least, you have four, we call it a diurnal cortisol level. Some clinicians are running this and clinicians like myself, we do a lot of tests where you can order them online, have them shipped to your home. Then, you can run the labs and mail them out to the lab. They actually provide you results very quickly.

Cortisol is one of these things where cortisol imbalances can lead to hot flashes and night sweats. That can be also an underlying factor for thyroid imbalance, for hormone imbalance. So, evaluating your cortisol in the morning, at lunch, at dinner, and right before bed is a really good way to evaluate your circadian rhythm.

That’s the rhythm of your natural waking. You’re kind of at your highest energy cortisol point and then you should be dipping and slowly going to your lowest point at night. A lot of folks, when we test cortisol, it doesn’t work out that way. That’s okay, it’s just the sign that your body’s stress response mechanism is heightened. And often, that is heightened due to underlying physiological, biochemical imbalances. An infection, a flare. Identifying that source is really critical.

Could It Be Acidosis?

Now, when it comes to acidosis, labs, kidney values, liver values, enzyme values, and also running a urinalysis will be helpful. Also, if you’re not sure if it’s acidosis and we might be dealing with some underlying diabetes or insulin resistance, let’s make sure you’re testing your glucose every day. Know that when you test your glucose, so that’s your blood sugar value, when you test in the morning, that’s ideally going to be your highest peak. But, if your cortisol is imbalanced, your insulin and your blood sugar levels are going to near the cortisol spikes.

It’s not uncommon for folks to test their blood sugar levels throughout the day and get all sorts of random numbers. Sometimes really high, sometimes moderate levels, or normal levels. It’s best to test several times throughout the day, ideally in the morning, right around mid-afternoon, right before dinner, and right before bed. That’ll match up with your cortisol values and then you can identify if cortisol is driving your blood sugar imbalances, that might be leading to hot flashes or kind of a heat experience. Or, if there’s something else going on. I like to use our labs to rule out things as well.

Testing for Lyme Disease

Now, with Lyme, this is a whole other ballgame when it comes to evaluations – evaluating Lyme and testing. One of the things that I’ve found in referring patients to specific Lyme specialties is to identify if there’s a spare heat, any type of bacteria present in the blood, identify and evaluate by live blood cell analysis.

That’s a little different than the standard testing that we see. Even then, some testing resources are not as comprehensive as they need to be. If it is Lyme and we’ve identified that, then there’s a possibility that the Lyme could be impacting the cortisol. It could be impacting the reproductive hormones.

Test…and Then Retest

Make sure you do a full analysis and don’t rely on Dr. Google. Really get the evaluation of where your body stands and then, retest in six months. Do whatever you need to do. Take the measures to work whatever protocols provided for you. Definitely, if you need any resources, I’d love to help.

Don’t hesitate, John, to contact me if you need any additional resources or you want to review your labs. I do that with a lot of patients, where they’ll book a 30-minute appointment and we’ll review the lab results. That can be very helpful.

An Offer for the Organixx Community

One of the really exciting things that we have here at Organixx, in my partnership with Organixx, is I’m offering all Organixx consumers and customers a special discount to schedule an appointment with me. There will be information on how to access this special discount.

John, for you or anybody else that wants me to review your labs, I’d love to do that. We can put together a very personalized, very tailored, specific protocol to meet your needs. Really address the hot flashes and identify where are they coming from. Because identification, utilization of labs, and putting together a very specific, comprehensive plan is really the true path to healing.

Thanks, John, for asking that question. I hope that’s been helpful and I look forward to hopefully working with you soon.

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