Overtraining/Sympathetic overstimulation- all help needed

I hate overtraining, i have been in bed for almost 6 months now.
It sucks. It all started late feb when i overdid it with deadly plyos,(like weighted shock and depth jumps, sprinting with parachutes) all types of sick explosive paused squats, goodmornings, dead lifts, and all kinds of other ham exercises along with endless hours of basketball and very poor sleep quality. Thought i could get back easily to my 17 year old levels several yrs after refraining from high level exercise but this didnt happen.

Too bad i had the knowledge to deal with it initially but didnt eventually(with a biology and genetics degree and currently in med school i should be smarter about all that) but left it overtake me now i ve gained 25 pounds body fat in them 6 months, damaged irreversibly till today my sympathetic nervous system (i can still shake and feel tremors) and metabolically i feel like hell.

Initial 2 months symptoms

Heavy restless legs(couldnt practically move around)
Fatigue
Lethargy
Insomnia
Iregular resting heart beats and pulse
Killing hunger (ate and ate and couldnt fill up)
Nausea
Headaches
Restlessness and irritability
Apathy
Low libido (free testosterone levels dipped at the 3d week of overtraining from initial preovertraining values of 28pg/ml to 10.8 pg/ml(normal values 15-40) and still now 6 months later they have risen up to 16.5pg/ml imagine that!!! 1pg/ml increase per month)
Mood disorder and depression
and other symptoms i can remember

At the end of 2 months i started thinking of taking serious action to get better, had dealt with overtraining before one time last yr(for 6 weeks i was kept in bed) and one time several yrs ago when i was at the peak of my sprinting and jumping performance. So i started getting massages from pro masseuses, taking cold/warm baths stretching repeatedly and eating only the best i could find.
Later on i went to several sports doctors and other endocrinologists, they told me its gonna get better soon ...... and i should try doing the
"active rest" plan so i started swimming regularly every day more and more initially under supervision of a friend/coach. Was also sent to a diet specialist he gave me a bunch of complex carbohydrate and vitamin/aminoacid supplements i felt slightly energized for about 3-4 days and thought my sympathetic system was ok finally so i started walking around and spending time outside and stayed out late a couple of days didnt rest properly and without further notice situation got worse once again.

Now for the last 3.5 months i cant even get out of bed most days
i have developed total body weakness
aboslute loss of energy, wake up in the morning and feel dead
very bad mood
musle aching and atrophies
shaky extremities
terrible insomnia
photosensitivity (there are weeks i didnt even turn on my comp or the tv)
constant feeling of heavy legs
impaired blood circulation
nauseas and headaches
retrosternal burning
loss of coordination when i walk outside the house
memory impairment

and other debilitating symptoms

the only good thing is that my libido came back to 50% normal i hope in 3-4 months i may be able to get laid again.

Have done all tests possible but still cant find whats wrong now, doctors suspect now that the chronic stress from sympathetic overtraining and the imbalance of testo/cortisol may have affected my adrenals so im gonna be checking them on a constant basis from now on.

Anyone with previous experience pls give advice on tests or what else i could do

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/ Fybromyalgia?

Sounds like you initially fried your CNS and now your experiencing permenant reprocutions. Dosent soound good. Lots and lots of rest, good diet, and very mild exercise is all I would do personally. Make sure to go to the doc to get all your blood work done too and see if their is an underlying problem in that sense as well.

If worst comes to worst you could always try amphetimine stimulants like provagil/ adderal to give you an energy/ focus boost.

I try doing mild swimming but its doing nothing. In a couple of instances a few months ago after a very intense swimming session by the sea i felt a sudden burst of wellness and strength and that was kept till next day i went to try my running abilities. Then this terrible heavy leg feeling returned and i had to stay in bed without much walking for another 2 weeks to cool down.
Each and every time i try to do something more than walking, my legs(quads/biceps) get the same heavy feeling and i feel overally sick again. During night time i feel they dont recover sufficiently.
Im really hoping that the free testo/cortisol ratio is the whole problem behind all this, but till i get to check carefully resting catecholamine levels and acth i dont know what else to think of. All exams are normal apart from that.

Today i drove to a nearby pool to do some swimming, did 6 x 25 metres at an average-not very fast pace and at the end of each drive i was getting caught out of breath. It happens all the time i go swimming - the only aerobic activity i can do now.
I tried to take deep breaths after that to relax and it felt like i had bronchitis or like my max v02 or deep breathing capability is being messed up by my brain. Also it took me 2 hours for my heart rate and my pulse to recover to normal pace after the swim. Wtf? More than this my legs started hurting again and it takes days for them to recover.
I dont know about fibromyalgia doctors told me i look too healthy too have something like that, but i feel sick really. Every afternoon at around 6-8 pm i get a sudden burst of heartburn or retrosternal burn like im under extreme stress despite the fact that i lie down or watch tv during that time.

Need help really, hard to find good sport doctors here they dont even know the differenece between sympathetic and parasympathetic overtraining. I keep hoping and hoping one day i will wake up and all this weakness and sick tiredness will go away, but when will that be...

[QUOTE=s0b;68461673]I try doing mild swimming but its doing nothing. In a couple of instances a few months ago after a very intense swimming session by the sea i felt a sudden burst of wellness and strength and that was kept till next day i went to try my running abilities. Then this terrible heavy leg feeling returned and i had to stay in bed without much walking for another 2 weeks to cool down.
Each and every time i try to do something more than walking, my legs(quads/biceps) get the same heavy feeling and i feel overally sick again. During night time i feel they dont recover sufficiently.
Im really hoping that the free testo/cortisol ratio is the whole problem behind all this, but till i get to check carefully resting catecholamine levels and acth i dont know what else to think of. All exams are normal apart from that.

Today i drove to a nearby pool to do some swimming, did 6 x 25 metres at an average-not very fast pace and at the end of each drive i was getting caught out of breath. It happens all the time i go swimming - the only aerobic activity i can do now.
I tried to take deep breaths after that to relax and it felt like i had bronchitis or like my max v02 or deep breathing capability is being messed up by my brain. Also it took me 2 hours for my heart rate and my pulse to recover to normal pace after the swim. Wtf? More than this my legs started hurting again and it takes days for them to recover.
I dont know about fibromyalgia doctors told me i look too healthy too have something like that, but i feel sick really. Every afternoon at around 6-8 pm i get a sudden burst of heartburn or retrosternal burn like im under extreme stress despite the fact that i lie down or watch tv during that time.

Need help really, hard to find good sport doctors here they dont even know the differenece between sympathetic and parasympathetic overtraining. I keep hoping and hoping one day i will wake up and all this weakness and sick tiredness will go away, but when will that be...[/QUOTE]


Man, I can really feel for you and understand the frustraton and depression your going through. Especially at such a young age to go through such a devistating ordeal.

The thing with cfs/ fibro is that the onset of symptoms can somtimes be from an acute viral infection, traumatic accident, or even in your case a day where you extremly over exert/ burn out your body and the damage is done from the stress. Their are no tests to positivly identify cfs either and patients usually test normal and seem healthy according to blood work, scans, etc.

Seriously, research it a bit and let my know what you think, try wikipedia, webmd, etc. and cross reference the material.

In regards to your heart burn/ bronchil problems, that might be part of an underlying problem, I would make record of this and tell your doctor.

Also, where do you live? Maybe you have some sort of environmental sensitivity? Im just taking stabs in the dark here. The body is so complex and you really have to exhaust all avenues to try and narrow down the problem.

I would try and find a good doctor though and really work closely with them. Get referals to variety of specialists to do testing etc.

Im doing all the research i can and talk to as many doctors as possible and started seriously thinking that all them problems are due to my adrenals.
It must be some type of adrenal fatigue just dont know which one correlates to the sympathetic overstimulation i suffered from prior to that.

I doubt i would have CFS or Fibromyalgia, there is a totally different etiology and symptomatology behind those conditions.

On the other hand all those symptoms i have suffered from have fluctuated seriously regarding what i eat and how much i sleep or what kind of stimulants i have been using from cola to caffeine to alcohol during this time.

When i cut down caffeine 3 months ago the hypoglycemia was decreased.

Took some time to consider all my symptoms from day one.

There was a point after the initial overtraining period when my condition really got worse. Thus i developed

nausea
headache
very little energy during the day/washed out feeling
couldnt get out of bed for weeks
i ate more and more each day put on 25 pounds of abdominal fat in 4 months
the slightest of exercise (swimming for 10 minutes) caused me bronchitis increased pulse and cardiac rhythm that lasted for hours after i finished swimming
low back pain every single day
heavy sluggish legs
low libido which got better over time
sensitivity to light and pupil dilatation problems
serious muscular atrophies

later on when i cut down stimulants and changed my diet i started to notice that nauseas went away and hypoglycemias was a bit better but then i started doing more swimming and minor weight exercises this brought about

tremors
great difficulty sleeping/kept waking up and shaking
more eye problems, pupils would dillate upon bright light and would not constrict again so i was getting panic attacks continuously couldnt watch tv/computer
retrosternal burns developed each time i swam or did a few minutes of weight lifting
bronchitis was more serious after swimming and pulse would not drop for hours
exhaustion fatigue allways there

and a bunch of other weird problems

ended up in the emergency room since i was shaking for days and couldnt sleep properly doctors thought i was on drugs or had some type of neuropsychotic disease. I told them i was in bed due to overtraining for months they didnt know what that was.

After they calmed me down they prescribed ******, that made me worse, felt sick during the day but at least i could sleep at nights. Now i ordered X-dream to see if it makes me feel any better.
Anyways later on i made a great change in my diet cut down all carbohydrates with high glycemic index and all stimulants and got slightly slightly better and that made me thinking that it has something to do with my adrenals and my metabolism and the way my body reacts to the slightest physical stress and energy production. Some herbs made me way better for some days but then their effect went away.

I ordered a saliva test for cortisol since i think that i cant just out of the blue go mad just because i overtrained and there is the mood and need to exercise i just cant do it physically i am weak and without any energy.

Any thoughts/ any other sufferers from adrenal fatigue?

Theres is a complication though, and thats what i am not sure about it, and i dont know what sort of adrenal fatigue would overstimulation of my sympathetic nervous system cause(sympathetic overtraining). Overtraining unfortunately as many of you know has two distintcly different patterns of action on the body and on the adrenals depending on what part of the autonomic nervous system gets affected, so i dont know if its just cortisol that doesnt work right or if its epinephrine/norepinephrine as well as other hormones thats why i am very sceptical about treatment.
Is adrenal fatigue the end result of both parasympathetic and sympathetic overstimulation or does only sympathetic overstimulation lead to adrenal fatigue?
I know each condition resembles a different type of adrenal dysfunction but as far as concerning the end result fatiguing state it is not yet clear in my mind.

Your symptoms also fit hypothyroidism. You could also have a pituitary tumor. This is the wrong place to be asking these types of questions. You need to be more aggressive with your Dr. about solving this problem.

Good luck.

I wouldn't blame it on over-training.

The over-training might have exasperated your condition, but anytime we are talking about MONTHS and not days, it isn't just over-training that is doing it to you.

that cant be right
you would be over trained for 3.5 months
you need to go see your doc