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Severe Adrenaline Spikes every morning - please help
Hello! I am absolutely desperate, so I decided to write on here, hoping anyone else has had a similar experience or has answers. For years, I have been struggling with what feels like intense spikes in adrenaline every morning. I have more severe and less severe months, but the more severe ones become so debilitating that I can’t function in life, and have become passively suicidal just to escape my physical experience. I’ve been diagnosed with anxiety and depression, but the weird part is that it feels so physical, it wakes me up from sleep, and no matter what I try to counter it (breathing, meditations, leaning into it, movement, medications, etc.), it persists until my body caps out on enduring the discomfort, and I fall into anxiety attacks and depression.
For some context, I have tried so many things. I have a history of EBV, HHV-6, SIBO, trauma, and PTSD. I’ve done tons of blood ozone and SOT for the first 3, and I’ve done/am still doing EMDR trauma therapy, regular therapy, ketamine infusions and lozenges, Neurofeedback, medications, I even exercise consistently, meditate, eat well, etc. I’ve been to an endocrinologist, who said tests looked good. I’ve gotten so much blood work over the years, and even my trauma therapist has said she hasn’t seen anything quite like this. She says it seems like my trauma is being processed and coming down, but that this physical experience will still spike and seem out of my control, making her concerned it’s a medical problem. I am desperate for help and answers. I don’t know how to fix this without knowing what’s wrong. Has anyone experienced or seen anything like this?
It wakes me up like clockwork at 7:30am, and even if I just lay there, I can feel it spike through my body, until it feels like my skin is burning sometimes, my stomach is dropping out, and I’m eventually squirming around in pain just hoping it goes away. I don’t know what else to do, please let me know if you’ve had or heard of anything like this, I will owe you my life.
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Hello everyone,
I am so grateful for everybody's stories and kind words, but I am also shocked that the medical community can not figure this out, and just seem to heal the symptoms instead of finding the root problem. We have been to many doctors, run many tests, and all they seem to do is say "everything looks normal, it's probably anxiety".
That is so frustrating and invalidating. I wonder...is the common denominator for us a very stressful event/ patterns of overworking our bodies?
For me, I have had a very tumultuous life. I have struggled with Bipolar depression and anxiety for years, my parents' illnesses and deaths, emotional/ physical abuse, stressful work environment, and I am a mother of 3 (raising kids and balancing life is very taxing on our bodies), and of course since 2020: financial struggles. In 2016, I had severe Postpartum depression. That is when I first noticed the adrenaline spikes/ morning sickness in the morning, but I thought it was because of a lack of sleep due to the new baby. I started taking sertraline to help with the depression, and it sort of helped with the panic attacks, but just dulled it. Over time, the adrenaline attacks faded so I think those were anxiety/ stress related.
Fast forward to 2021, I get the COVID shots because I was threatened to be fired. I started having panic attacks, high blood pressure, and NOW heart palpatations, just one week after the shot. A lot happens after that... deaths, illnesses, arrests, drunken spouse, Stressful prison job, etc. WAY TOO MUCH stress for 5 years but my body somehow manages despite now having high BP, migraines, and hypoglycemic spells from starving myself almost daily at work. UNTIL....
March 2026. I just had a baby in Dec 2024 and the PPD returns. I stopped taking my sertraline since I was BF and that did not help my mental health. Finally I decided a few months ago (thanks to TikTok) that I want to try Wellbutrin. I take it for a month and I start having dizzy spells, nausea, weakness, and adrenaline rushes that cause panic for no apparent reason. My virtual psych doc (don't recommend) said its ok to quit cold turkey so I did in April. That is when the daily morning adrenaline surges, morning sickness, digestive problems, and panic attacks start happening more. But two months in, and it is still happening except all day off and on. My doctor prescribed Propranolol 80 mg but it only helps the fast heartbeat and lower my BP. It does nothing for the adrenaline and panic.
I am convinced the chronic stress and the wellbutrin have fried my nervous system or HPA axis. The doctors have tested everything and say I need more sleep. I can't get more sleep because I work until Midnight and I wake up when my toddler wakes up!!! So everyday has been terrible jolting awake in terror, followed by gagging and feeling a surge through my body. My heart is starting to feel twinges of pain too. The only thing that helps the nausea is, ironically, eating. I force myself to eat a piece of toast and a banana and drink apple juice and water. Then I take my Propranolol. I end up eliminating everything within an hour of eating though, "dumping syndrome" and now feel hungry/thirsty often due to it . Also, I get weak before/after eating which I think is hypoglycemia. No diagnosis so far except pre-hypertension, and I am wearing a heart monitor to see what happens to my heart during the episodes.
Sorry for the long post, but I am hoping my story will help someone else feel seen.
I think that with some people anxiety does cause them to be sick. My mom has that and if her anxiety is treated, her physical health gets much better.
I was experiencing adrenaline surges a couple of years ago and also had multiple physical symptoms being diagnosed with post covid syndrome and a vitamin deficiency. I chose to get talk therapy to help me manage my symptoms and treat the deficiency. It helped tremendously. I had significant improvement over the course of a year and no more adrenaline surges.
Have you considered a Functional doctor? I have read they can be very helpful in treating symptoms.
@daphnerochellem Hi there someone may have covered off on this earlier, however I was suffering from acute anxiety at around 2am every morning for the last 8 months, the way I ended up finding out how to resolve my issue was by my own determination, my doctor could not work out how to treat my problem. So I suffer from restless leg syndrome, my medication Pramipexole I take at 9am every morning I then sat in a lounge chair in the afternoon and waited for when the medication wore off it turned out to be around 4pm so around 7hrs lasting time, I also take a second dose of Pramipexole at 7pm every night so sure enough 7hrs later 2am I was awake, this medication is supposed to last 8 to 12 hrs however because I have been taking this for a number of years as well as being on the maximum dose the medication was at a stage of augmentation and I was waking up because the medication is failing, now to visit my doctor to see what the next step is. I don’t know if this will help anyone but I wish you all well.