Dr. Dylan Petkus reviews how Katherine went from adrenal fatigue to normal in weeks after her fatigue and fogginess held her back from her full potential.
00:00
Dylan Petkus, MD
Hey, everyone; it is Dr. Dylan Petkus here with Optimal Circadian Health and with one of my favorite Aussies or Brits. I’m not sure, you know, my all that, but Katherine here is one of our favorite clients who has had great success and shifts in her own healing journey. And we always love to share these stories, testimonials, whatever you want to call it, with our favorite paid actors, I mean, our favorite clients. And being able to show what’s possible for all of you out there. And being able to know that, yes, being able to go from a place of where, as Katherine will get into her own problems, that there is a way out and there are these shifts and change you can be making and what is on the other side waiting for you.
00:45
Dylan Petkus, MD
Because so much of what’s hard going through this healing journey, whether it’s months or years, is losing that sight of things ever being different. But yes, absolutely, they can be different and things can be way better, way more fun as well. And that’s what we’re all here to chat about today. So thanks for being with me today, Katherine. And I guess jump right into the fun things. And then the whole preface to this is, I’ll say jump, hop. Things of that nature. As she’s in Australia right now. There’s a lot of kangaroo undertone jokes throughout the entire thing. So if you’re kind of wondering why these sort of different words and phrases, that’s just the joke of the day. So with that, we’ll just kind of hop right in. So, Katherine, I guess it must have been about like ten or twelve weeks ago.
01:32
Dylan Petkus, MD
But tell us about where you were when you first heard about us, what your big struggles were, the level of exhaustion, and all the issues you were facing.
01:43
Katherine
Yeah, sure. Well, I thinking back, it seemed so different to where I am now, thankfully. But I definitely had this overwhelming fatigue. I was having trouble doing anything. I’d had to leave my job. I’m a vet and I couldn’t hack being a vet anymore.
02:02
Katherine
I just couldn’t keep up the pace.
02:05
Katherine
I’d had tests after tests trying to find out why I was so tired, why I was so fatigued. And the doctors keep telling me that everything was normal. So have some antidepressants and go away. And it was just getting to the point where I just had so little energy, I just couldn’t even get out of bed. A lot of mornings I’ve got two small children and running around after them.
02:30
Katherine
Was just getting impossible.
02:32
Katherine
So most of the parenting work was going on to my husband, most of the household work was going on to him. He’s trying to work as well. It was just the whole family dynamic wasn’t working at all because I just couldn’t be part of the family anymore because of my fatigue. And I was trying to run a business, too, and my brain was just not working. I was used to having a brain that just worked whenever I wanted it to.
02:59
Katherine
And probably over the last five or ten years that was just leaving me.
03:06
Katherine
I didn’t have that sharpness anymore. And certainly just before I signed up to the program, the brain fog was so bad. Even simple tasks like making a phone call or deciding on dinner or anything like that was just so overwhelming. My brain would not get into gear to think about normal day to day life.
03:29
Katherine
And, yeah, it was really awful. It was quite lonely and definitely depressing.
03:39
Katherine
And, yeah, not a good place. Not a good place to be. I’m really glad I’m not there anymore.
03:44
Dylan Petkus, MD
Yeah, that’s a big piece of it. Because when we first connect, I know, like many people, when we’re on the first breakthrough session, I’m sure as you’re hitting the 30 minutes mark, it’s like, okay, as long as it’s going to go. But a lot of the. I remember noticing that brain fog and then also the physical limitations as well of where I think, if I remember correctly, one of the big things was your family going for a walk, and you wouldn’t really be able to be with them and just if you could, a little bit more in terms of the physical limitations.
04:20
Katherine
Sure. Well, yeah, I mean, walking has always been something I’ve enjoyed. I like being out in nature and getting out. And so that’s always been something I’ve done for stress relief and just feeling better. But over time, I just wasn’t even able to get out.
04:35
Katherine
And we would not walk my kids to school anymore. That was too much. If I tried to walk them to school, I’d come home and I’d just have a crash and I wouldn’t be good for anything else for the whole day. And at my worst, I wasn’t even able really to walk down my hallway to get from the bedroom to the kitchen. I had my meals being brought to me in bed because I couldn’t get up to sit at the table and eat meals with my family.
04:59
Katherine
I was too tired.
05:01
Katherine
And, yeah, just that physical limitation. I felt trapped. I felt like I was just going to have to live life in one room or just not ever leave a house. I was going to have people. I was going to be dependent on people looking after me because I wasn’t capable of getting up and getting out of bed and doing normal things to live a normal life.
05:26
Katherine
So it was pretty scary, just feeling that it was a real weakness in my muscles. I’d get up, I’d get out of breath really quickly, I’d feel weak. I’d feel if I started walking after all, my muscles would just stop. They wouldn’t let me keep taking more steps even though I was like really wanted to do it. I was like, I’m quite stubborn, really person. And I’d be like, come on, let’s just kind of, I just need to get where I need to be. And the body just didn’t have anything there to give me. I just didn’t have any energy. That was pretty frightening for a while.
06:05
Dylan Petkus, MD
Yeah, when there’s that level of physical limitation which think it’s gone, that’s good, and we’ll get to those big shifts you’ve got there in a little bit. But also the physical, the mental, all those things shut down and then that’s when life comes on hold and it’s very different than what we’ve all hoped for. Where you go a different place, you assume it’s a certain family dynamic and then it shifts all around you and kind of the limitations and in terms of being able to overcome those limitations in being able to fix these things, I guess we’ll get into the more specifics of what you try. But one thing that’s really like, because as you try all these different things, everyone’s like, oh, you have this and that and this and that. So what were some of the this and that?
06:54
Katherine
So I’d been diagnosed with adrenal fatigue.
06:57
Katherine
I think that was the sort of only actual diagnosis I ever got from a functional medicine doctor was adrenal fatigue. And yeah, that was the main thing. I had some gut issues as well. They weren’t the main problem, but yeah, they were certainly there. But yeah, mostly it was the adrenal fatigue. I’d had depression on and off for, gosh, for a long time, and I’d had that under control. You know, I’d sort of had anxiety and depression since I was a teenager. And in my twenties and my thirties I thought I’ve got this under control.
07:38
Katherine
But as I kind of hit my forties, I kind of couldn’t keep that at bay anymore with the tools I had. And yeah, I was finding that was getting a lot worse.
07:53
Katherine
But yeah, I think my problems weren’t just, wasn’t just depression. It didn’t feel like depression was the reason I was so tired and so exhausted. The doctors kept coming back to it as, oh, it must be depression, because the medics didn’t believe in adrenal fatigue anyway, so I was sort of having this thing of, what is wrong with me? This person saying, it’s adrenal fatigue, this person saying, oh, it’s depression, but everything I was trying wasn’t working.
08:28
Dylan Petkus, MD
Yeah, because one of the depression thing, which I mean, obviously is no laughing matter, but I’ve been there. You’ve been there as well. But the dynamic you get thrown into, like, oh, you’re tired and you’re sad, but it must be just. It’s almost as if they’re like, we don’t know what else it could be, but let’s just kind of pin it on this. It’s like pin the tail on the diagnosis. But then the other piece here of where so many people, there’s one that they may gravitate towards adrenal fatigue, chronic fatigue, something like that. It’s like relieving to an extent of, we’re like, okay, we think we know what this is, but then it’s just like, okay, let’s try this and this and this.
09:11
Dylan Petkus, MD
So in terms of, with functional medicine, and then, like, adrenal fatigue, and then, I’m sure all the testing and supplements and what were those more specific things or those rabbit holes, if you will, that you went down, you’re like, okay, maybe a little bit, but not, like, really where I need to be.
09:27
Katherine
Yeah, sure. So with the adrenal fatigue, like you said, it was reassuring to get a diagnosis of thoughts with that, because that was the first time that anyone had actually said, I kind of believe you, that. this is an issue, and here is a potential mechanism for why it’s happening to you.
09:48
Katherine
But I didn’t find a lot of, you know, what, the kind of treatment were doing for that wasn’t getting me anywhere fast, you know, so I was on a lot of supplements. I had done all the cortisol testing to get that adrenal fatigue diagnosis.
10:05
Katherine
We’d done lots of other sort of functional medicine tests, like stool tests and things, to find out that I had some gut issues there. And I’m trying to think back to what we actually did. It just seemed to be quite a lot of supplements and diet changes and taking it easy and, yeah, just lots of pacing myself and things that just, like, I’d get a little bit better.
10:36
Katherine
But I’d be okay. As long as I wasn’t challenged by anything, as long as life was okay, I was okay. But anything that got thrown in, I didn’t have any kind of reserve capacity to cope with any stress.
10:51
Katherine
So, yeah, I found the kind of label of adrenal fatigue was initially reassuring.
10:56
Katherine
But then it was kind of like. “What do I do with it?” Like, none of the treatments for adrenal fatigue seemed to get me anywhere.
11:02
Dylan Petkus, MD
Yeah, it’s kind of funny where you see a mechanic. It’s like, oh, yeah, your car is going to be way better, but don’t drive it. Don’t do that driveway. You don’t want to come out and do that. But also, so much of the functional medicine languages, the layers of the onions, like, oh, we’re going to go to the gut, and then we’re going to go here. But it’s just like one thing after another, but again, it’s almost like maybe a little bit of improvement, but the first thing that comes in, because life is never going to stop happening. Right? I think when you’re going through that process, I think that’s when COVID just kind of came into the world. Like, here you go, here’s life, which is really not where you want to be super resilient.
11:49
Dylan Petkus, MD
And so many people will go through that where they like, okay, it’s going to be this. And then all the time, money and effort that goes down there and still eventually reaching a point of where, since that’s not getting you where you want, then you keep searching, and then you run into us. And especially how you were from the UK in Australia, which is a separate country from the two of them; by the way, for everyone to know, how did you bump into us? And then when you were, I don’t know, maybe looking at a post, maybe even the masterclass, you were like, all right, what’s going on? Like, what kind of brought you in?
12:25
Katherine
Mean, I kind of discovered you through a Facebook ad. I was probably lying in bed, scrolling on Facebook because that’s all I was actually capable of doing anymore at that point. I had a lot of time on my hands because I couldn’t get out of bed and do anything. So I’d just be going through social media. And I joined lots of groups, adrenal support groups on Facebook. So I was always clicking on lots of different things, just trying to see if anyone out there had any answers.
12:57
Katherine
And, yeah, I saw your ad pop up and I think I almost scrolled past it, actually, but, well, let’s just see what these people have to say. Here’s another way of passing a few minutes. And, yeah, I think what you were saying just sort of really rang true with what I was feeling is that there’s so much stuff out there that’s supposed to help, that just doesn’t help, or that isn’t getting at it from the right level. So you were talking a lot about getting right down to a cellular level and really getting down to our energy production, not worrying about organ systems and everything like that, but really just getting right down to see the fundamentals of energy production in our cells. And I hadn’t heard anybody approach it that way before, and it made a lot of sense.
13:50
Katherine
So I just started watching more and more of your videos, and I felt that with your own story, having been through it yourself, you understood what it was like. A lot of the time, I’d be talking to doctors or whatever, who they just didn’t really didn’t take me seriously.
14:10
Katherine
Or felt they weren’t taking me seriously. I think because I didn’t fall into a category that they could easily deal with, it’s a bit of a nuisance for them to have to deal with someone with this fatigue problem. “Why can’t they just go away and stop being so tired?” I felt like he kind of understood that and how hard it is when you feel like this to get help. I was pretty determined that there must be some kind of answer out there. I didn’t want to just give up, so I thought, I’ll just keep investigating this a bit more. And I watched a few more of the videos, and, yeah, decided that it sounded like it was worth a try. I was still a bit skeptical because I’ve tried things before, and signed up to programs before, and, yeah, a lot of them look better on the surface.
15:09
Katherine
The marketing and everything look a lot better than the actual product, so I was still skeptical, but I thought, well, let’s give it a try. And I’d watch a bunch of your testimonials as well, which is why I’m really happy to be able to do a testimonial for you now, because having heard some of your other people, I’m like, yeah, okay.
15:26
Katherine
And you deal with such a wide range of people as well. So I thought, well, if you can help all these different people from all different backgrounds with all different problems, then maybe there’s something that you can offer me. So, yeah. So I got in touch.
15:40
Katherine
And I’m really glad I did.
15:41
Dylan Petkus, MD
Awesome. Me as well. And be able to have that conversation, the breakthrough call. And then the one key thing I want to highlight there is that you were someone who was hoping, kept going, and keep going, because so many times people they’ll almost settle for, I did this, it got me a little bit better. Maybe that’s it. And then just this horrible timeline of just like, well, this is how things are going to be. People get older, people get sick, which it’s not always how people feel going into it, but that’s almost what gets beaten into you with all the different failures time and time again.
16:17
Katherine
Well, I felt it was entirely unfair that I felt the way I did. I felt that I had worked hard all my life. I’d done everything I was supposed to do. I’d been a good person. And then I was feeling like, total crap. I felt that was just so unfair. I was really angry about feeling the way I did. And, yeah, like I said, I’m quite a stubborn, kind of determined person.
16:41
Katherine
So I was like, there has to be an answer to this. I’m not broken.
16:47
Katherine
There’s nothing wrong with me. Why do I feel like this?
16:51
Katherine
If every single one of my organs is working fine according to doctors, why do I feel like I did?
16:57
Katherine
So, yeah, I think having that kind of sense of indignity about the whole thing, like, how dare the universe do this to me, is what kept me going.
17:07
Dylan Petkus, MD
Yeah, well, good thing it kept you going towards us and then being able to because you were skeptical. And then all the things you’ve done before in the past, like, this sounds exactly like something I’ve done before in the past, but did it anyway because you knew that we’ve been through it, have taken many others and different walks through the same process. And then, as you were first with us in those first, like, one, two, three weeks, what were some of those immediate shifts in results you were having?
17:36
Katherine
Yeah, well, I mean, the first thing I noticed was waking up in the morning. So what I would have done before is I would have woken up; it would have been pretty late by the time I’d woken up, and the whole rest of the family probably would have been up and going, but I would have felt just like absolute death.
17:57
Katherine
I would have felt like I’d been hit by a truck. I would have had been in bed for, like, nine or ten hours. But I’d wake up and just feel scared about trying, having to face the day.
18:10
Katherine
I’d feel like I couldn’t even really get up out of bed.
18:17
Katherine
So how was I going to cope with life?
18:20
Katherine
So, yes, that’s how I was.
18:23
Katherine
And then after, it was probably only after about a week, I’d say, of starting the program. I realized when I was waking up in the morning I was just tired.
18:33
Katherine
But I could get up, and it wasn’t like a huge effort.
18:41
Katherine
I could get up and I could get started without feeling like it was a massive struggle. And that was pretty huge for me.
18:50
Katherine
This feeling that I could just get up in the morning and get going with life instead of just that. Those first seconds of opening your eyes, feeling like you couldn’t face anything. So that was really good. I noticed my sleep got a lot better. I hadn’t realized that my sleep wasn’t good because I was sleeping. I was sleeping 9 to 10 hours a night.
19:14
Katherine
But I was waking up a lot.
19:15
Katherine
I was not feeling refreshed at all.
19:19
Katherine
It kind of didn’t dawn on me that if I slept or if I’d woke up and I didn’t feel rested.
19:25
Katherine
That I hadn’t slept well.
19:29
Katherine
Penny dropped with that. That. Okay, well, if I actually sleep well, when I wake up, I feel rested.
19:35
Katherine
And I hadn’t felt like that for a long time. That was great. That was within the first week or two of getting started awesome.
19:44
Dylan Petkus, MD
And it’s because all we focus in on is sleep hygiene, right?
19:48
Katherine
Not quite, no. And it was easy to make those changes as well, to get that result, like the things that were doing, to get those changes that early, it wasn’t hard.
20:03
Katherine
It was stuff I could do because that was also another worry. Am I going to be asked to do things that I’m just not capable of doing?
20:09
Katherine
But all of it was stuff I could do.
20:11
Katherine
And, yeah, it definitely helped.
20:14
Dylan Petkus, MD
Because what we do is the simplest shifts someone can have, diet, lifestyle, and environmental. And a lot of times people have the concern, like, Dylan, I am literally stuck in bed. What do you mean, I’m going to be doing anything more than this? But Katherine obviously wasn’t, like, 100% bed-bound. Some people can be, but we’re able to scale that to someone’s current needs and demand. Because everyone’s on the spectrum, right? With the spectrum of survival mode, in a way. But that’s something where when you know how to kind of get the machine back going, that’s when you can be able to be in an entirely different trajectory and be able to be the fastest, simplest way to getting back to normal and beyond. That doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy.
21:00
Dylan Petkus, MD
Rainbows, unicorns, and there’s going to be these little down moments, but we help support you and get you back up. But it’s something of where you’re someone who you put the work into other things, but now it’s into a system that works. And I would probably say it’s maybe perhaps a little bit more work than other things because a lot of times people, their main exposure is a supplement protocol where, yes, it’s annoying to remember all these pills and stuff, but I got to do this, that. But this is something based on principles that really help you make these big shifts.
21:33
Dylan Petkus, MD
And so, for the big shifts through the rest of the eight weeks and even where you are right now in terms of your ability to concentrate, mental clarity, and being able to go on walks, what have been those awesome big changes for you?
21:47
Katherine
Yeah, well, I mean, I can give you an example of the other day where got up, got the kids ready for school, that whole craziness in the morning, and rode the bike down to school with them. So I’m actually riding bikes now. Kind of cool. Rode home from doing that, sat down at the computer, and did a few hours of work. Really productive. Managed to get out for a little bit of a walk at lunchtime, and did some more work in the afternoon with my brain just doing what I wanted it to do. I wasn’t trying to force myself to answer emails or anything like that.
22:26
Katherine
I could just get the thoughts out there.
22:29
Katherine
And then you went and picked up the kids from school, and on the way home, they were like, Mom, can we go down to the lake and have an ice cream?
22:36
Katherine
And I was like, yes, that’s a brilliant idea.
22:39
Katherine
Let’s go down to the lake and have an ice cream.
22:41
Katherine
Whereas before I would have gone, I wouldn’t have been able to do all that. And if I had managed to go and get them from school, I’d be like, just trying to get home where I could collapse. And if they’d asked me to do anything fun, I’d be like, no, sorry, Mummy doesn’t have the energy. And they would have come home and watched telly instead. And then I cooked dinner after that as well.
23:03
Katherine
So I felt like just that I was part of society again. I was looking after my children, I was working, and I was just having fun doing it. And that is just so different from how I was before. And it feels like that’s the kind of life you should have, having fun with your kids, eating ice cream when you want to.
23:24
Dylan Petkus, MD
That is the main goal. We always talk about eight weeks in, how much ice cream do you want to be eating? It’s really a key component. I’m joking. But in all seriousness, being able to have this ideal day of where you can wake up and go through the things you need to do, take care of your family, and then be able to have those moments of where a spontaneous moment like that, you don’t have.
23:45
Katherine
To say yes to things, you can.
23:49
Dylan Petkus, MD
Just go ahead and do it. So it’s just so great to see you do that. I remember one of the celebrations you posted of where I think it was your husband, your kids, maybe a kangaroo in the background. I don’t remember. But you guys were like, up on this hike.
24:06
Katherine
Oh, yeah, I walked up a hill. Like an actual hill. Yeah.
24:13
Katherine
And that was great to be able to have those family moments, get out and enjoy nature and think, I can walk for an hour and first of all, I can do it. And then after I’ve done it, I’m not going to crash and have to wipe out the next couple of days.
24:32
Dylan Petkus, MD
So it’s been super awesome to have you on this journey with us. Know, not really able to walk to the mailbox and back through being able to go to the hills of Australia. I don’t know if Australia has mountains or not, but you get the point. It was you being someone who’s committed to the outcome of, okay, that didn’t work, but I’m going to keep going. You being highly coachable of where there’s a lot of certain things are very simple, what we help people with, and then certain things are like, all right, nitty-gritty detail when mercury is in retrograde and being able to figure all that stuff out.
25:09
Dylan Petkus, MD
But it’s really being able to always know that we’re working towards this outcome of where, if you want to have an ice cream by the lake, you can go ahead and do that, because that’s what life is about. Health is something, but it allows you to have a life on top of it. Right. Where it’s being able to have these moments, these experiences. Yeah, you can have a cool sleep number and all that stuff. But the cooler thing is being able to have these moments of where you can be living an engaging life. And that’s because you were someone who that was a must for you. And you’ve always been fun and along the know, everyone has a little ups and downs there. You had more of the hops than the kangaroo in the valley would be.
25:50
Dylan Petkus, MD
But that’s really a testimony to you in terms of how you showed up and how you did the work. And in terms of where that journey all started, for Katherine, it was one of our free breakthrough sessions where at the time, I don’t think were running ads to Australia, but somehow you found, oh, because you’re in the UK. But either way, you saw it, you saw something different. And you knew when you saw that link to book a call, you’re like, there could be something different here. And that’s why we have that free breakthrough session, to get real clarity in terms of, okay, what is this problem? What can your goals be? Okay, I’m not sure if we talked about it, I think we did talk about spontaneous moments with family, but not necessarily ice cream, because it’s very hard to project spontaneous moments.
26:33
Dylan Petkus, MD
But that aside, being able to really walk you through that process, let you know what is possible for you and how we can best help. And, of course, if we’re a fit for each other, because if you don’t like my lame jokes, then it may not work. But I’m joking because that’s.
26:47
Katherine
There are a lot of lame jokes.
26:48
Dylan Petkus, MD
There’s a lot of lame. It’s not about me in any way. It’s just kind of how I am sometimes. A little goofy, silly, but it’s about people like Katherine and being able to be in this system and the people support it, this energy, this healing machine that we always love to have people be a part of. And if you’re a good fit for that, then that’s what we find out on the breakthrough call. So I’ll have a little link below here optimalcircadianhealth.com/talk. Go there. There’ll be a calendar. You pick a time, you fill out a form, and then we just call you at the time that you have there, and we figure out, okay, what’s going on? What are some of the limitations you have? What have you tried in the past? Why has that not worked for you?
27:29
Dylan Petkus, MD
What’s sort of the trajectory for you, and how can we be able to determine what’s possible and the fastest, simplest path to be there. And if we know that’s a good fit for you, we’ll walk you through that. And if not, we will steer you somewhere else, because we’re all about being able to help people be on this healing journey, just like Katherine. So, everyone, welcome you again to the talk link. That’s optimalcircadianhealth.com/talk. Go pick your time, fill out the form, and we’ll give you a ring. So, Katherine, thank you so much for joining us here today. Always lovely to be in a slightly closer time zone to you. So it’s a little worked out a little bit better. This is not the usual office studio, and I have great lighting here where the right side is the light side.
28:11
Dylan Petkus, MD
But thanks for being with us.
28:13
Katherine
My pleasure.
28:14
Katherine
Thank you so much.
28:16
Dylan Petkus, MD
Of course. All right. Bye, everyone.