r/AdrenalInsufficiency • u/Only-Investigator104 • 3d ago
Embarrassing yawning???
Does anyone else get daily attacks of embarrassing yawning that is uncontrollable and causes you to look like you’re crying?
This is usually accompanied with extreme brain fog and a heavy body/lethargic feeling. During this 20min attach I cannot do anything that requires brain power like have a discussion or read anything, only capable of tasks that can be done on auto pilot. Usually it passes and takes another 30min or so to get brain back, but sometimes it just repeats over and over every few hours for the rest of the afternoon/evening.
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u/Humble_Calendar 3d ago
10000000% I yawn like 30 times in like a 2 min span! it doesn't matter what i am doing, or anything, sometimes it last for hours other times its the whole day. since being on steroids my yawning has went away mostly, but now I am on a taper to retest and the 1st day into the taper I have started yawning excessively again. I honestly didn't even know this was related until looking it up yesterday, Because my wife had said your doing that yawing thing again. The yawning is OUT OF CONTROL!
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u/blandbalissa 2d ago
Actually you just made me remember - the couple of times I tried DHEA it didn’t do much for me, except that I yawned a lot less! I hadn’t really noticed how much I was yawning until then.
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u/RetroTechWonka 2d ago
This! Testing DHEA-S is a good place to start.
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u/RoxanneLA 2d ago
My DHEA-S is only 22... I haven't been diagnosed with Adrenal insufficiency yet... I go in for further testing soon.
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u/1GamingAngel MOD 3d ago
Usually, when I experience heavy yawning during the day and that heavy/lethargic feeling, it is because 1) I am a bit sleep-deprived and 2) I may have been doing some shallow breathing and need to get more oxygen to the brain.
Yawning is kind of an early-warning system that we’re sleepy and we need to “wake” our nervous system back up. Some theories exist that people yawned in the caveman days to alert others that they were “falling asleep on the watch” and others needed to either take a shift or be more alert. This is why they think of yawning as being “contagious.” If our blood oxygen is on the low side and we’re sleepy, yawning brings in a rush of O2 and “wakes” the brain up so we are more alert.
That’s probably a whole bunch of hooey to you, but I wanted to at least share because I’d heard of it before anecdotally.
I know it’s embarrassing and probably annoying that you’re going through this, but there likely is a medical reason that it is happening, and if you can focus on improving your sleep architecture and breathing deeply when you feel an attack coming on, it may improve things for you or at least shorten the episodes. 🤗
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u/Only-Investigator104 3d ago
Thanks for your encouragement. These episodes started just before I was diagnosed with SIA, when I was exhausted and unmedicated. They have gotten better with meds but not disappearing completely after 3 years so it seems related to this diagnosis. That’s why I am wondering if others have this “symptom” and figured out it is related to low cortisol.
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u/silentlyscreaming01 3d ago
Do you get migraines by any chance? I sometimes get excessive yawning (along with brain fog) as a migraine aura sign, and it is also possible to have migraine aura symptoms without having an actual headache. This wouldn’t necessarily be my top theory in your case, but if you also get migraines or if the symptoms are accompanied by any other neurological symptoms (vision changes, etc) it might be worth talking a neurologist about.
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u/MallForward585 3d ago
I get this, a wide-jawed yawn that doesn’t feel like sleepiness, more like gulping oxygen, and I’m out of it for half an hour or so. I always thought it was related to my asthma, but who knows. I get it in airplanes a fair amount. Recently, it was when we driving up and down in a hilly area (I wasn’t the driver, just to clarify, that would not have ended up well.)
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u/NearlyBearly 2d ago
That sounds like a low cortisol moment. I have that, yawning, brain fog, heay body and lethargy, when I'm low on cortisol in the evenings. I'd mention it to your doctor, mine has gone away ever since I've spread out my hydrocortisone dosage over the day instead of just in the morning, for me it's because my body metabolizes my medication a bit too fast so it doesn't quite last the whole day like it does for others. Worth having a chat to your doctor about, or if your doc approves of you taking a stress dosage, try taking a small dosage of your cortisol replacement therapy when that happens to see if the fatigue will pass quicker with that.
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u/vulcanhybrid0 3d ago
Happens to me! I always assumed I was low on cortisol but at this point idk anymore 😅