A week or so ago I asked a question about this in the Medications forum - no response. (That's ok. I checked all of NT's archives and there is very little other than bare mention of this topic.) I spent a month or 3 prior to that looking into it after reading several of Forest Tennant's (and others) articles about Hormone Therapy with regard to Chronic Pain.

http://www.practicalpainmanagement.c...tractable-pain

http://www.practicalpainmanagement.c...in-update-2010

http://www.prescription2000.com/Inte...ranscript.html

I Had my adrenal hormones tested per the recommendations in the articles, and I'm below the minimum indices on several of them, which according to Dr. Tennant could possibly indicate adrenal fatigue/exhaustion.

Problem is, that term/condition/syndrome/whatever - "adrenal fatigue" is not recognized, and dismissed by the medical powers that be. (Well, they don't recognize R-Lipoic & ALC for PN either, so....)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrenal_fatigue
(N.B. Addison's disease & Cushing's syndrome have been ruled out)

I asked around, and I got that look they give you - like there's a tree growing out of your head. What the doctors cannot dismiss is that my tested levels of these hormones are quite low, and in a couple of cases, have been for some time.

Anyway, since these adrenal hormones, which can be suppressed by chronic pain, are all derived from a "master/mother" hormone called pregnenolone, and pregnenolone is one of those that I'm low in, it made sense to me to begin there. I also read that the process of converting pregnenolone into these other hormones is fueled by pantothenic acid (vitamin B-5). Most people have enough B-5 from foods and multi-vitamins, but like B-12, it's a water soluble vitamin with no upper limit, and some work is being done with megadosing with encouraging results.

My (and I think Dr. Tennant's) theory is that if I supply my body with the raw materials it needs to mfr. these deficient but essential hormones, it may work out on its own (my ACTH is fine for those who are wondering). So earlier this week I began a conservative regimen of taking 10 mg pregnenolone (sublingual) with 500 mg pantothenic acid (timed release) twice a day.

After just 5 days, I think I'm sensing a change, however I remain conservatively cautious, if optimistic, and I'll be getting retested in a couple of months. If this doesn't work, I still have the option of directly replacing each of the deficient hormones individually, however that entails some risks - moreso than my current experiment.

Stay tuned.

Doc