Adrenal restart

[hurryupharry]

Hello, as for most of us the last 12 months has been a bit up and down for me. Last year I had been on 1.5mg of pred and thinking I was close to coming off. I had a flare at 1mg. later on I somehow got cancer and had a couple of operations to remove bits and bobs. In the middle of that my second covid vaccination caused a flare and then my second op seemed to reduce the effectiveness of pred altogether. After a bit of a battle I think I may be close to getting on track again. I have got down from 20mg to 6mg which I think puts me in the range when I might start to produce cortisol. Although I have been through this before I don’t recall anything! What should I expect to happen? If I am producing it can I reduce the pred dose, my history tells me no, but I don’t understand why.

[SnazzyD]

Hi there. Sorry you’ve been through the mill.6mg is about when the adrenals might start to make up the shortfall, but might is the operative word as 6mg can still be enough for the adrenal glands to not really get the message but you can still feel the lack of steroid. Very slow reduction from here to avoid the awful feeling of adrenal insufficiency but at the same time keeping challenging them to get going. This is all provided you have no PMR troubles above the common aches from adrenal sluggishness.

Have you read DL’s piece here? Also in FAQ’s is a piece about reductions and adrenal insufficiency.

healthunlocked.com/pmrgcauk...

[DorsetLady PMRGCAuk volunteer in reply to SnazzyD]

TY again..you’ve been busy on my behalf whilst I’ve been out for coffee😉

[hurryupharry in reply to SnazzyD]

Thank you. The document is really helpful and thank you to DL for making the information and her experience available. I have a couple of the symptoms of insufficiency but a long way away from most of them. Time to adopt the slow tapering technique and carry on.