Adrenal rush help

[jan61]

Hi im self medicating on hydrocortisone and have been on it fir 2 full days.

last night though I had really bad adrenaline pumping. Is this due to needing more HC? I have missed the first dose this morning. Any advice please?

[rosetrees]

Hi Jan. You don't say how much HC you are taking. My own experience was that I started on 10mg a day (i use the cream) and this gave me adrenaline rushes. I raised to 15mg and then to 20mg and the rushes stopped. You can read more about dosing here stopthethyroidmadness.com/a...

Have you had your cortisol levels measured? I took the Genova saliva cortisol test before starting HC. I also tried adrenal glandulars, which I still take on the advice of Dr P. I think that it's possibly because I take those that I don't need such a high dose of HC as some take. I've tried stress-dosing of 25mg and 30mg on a few occasions but it makes me hyper without making me feel better, so I've decided to stick with 20mg and stress dose with Vit C if needed.

[jan61 in reply to rosetrees]

Hi rose. Im taking 10,7.5,5 then 2.5 bedtime. Maybe I need to increase the dose? Had cortisol done through genova diagnostics and showed I needed HC.

[rosetrees in reply to jan61]

Hi Jan. I wish I could offer you further advise, but I can't. I can only speak from my own experience. It's just a juggling act to find what works best for you. Do you take vit C? Dr P recommended 3g a day - which I take in slow release form. I've read of others taking up to 6 - 10mg a day.

Are you a Facebook user? There's a good adrenal support group there whose members might be able to offer you more help than I can facebook.com/groups/FTPOAdr... (Hope it's ok to post that?)

[jan61 in reply to rosetrees]

Thanks rose, I will look the group up. I take 3 gram vit c, b12 sublingual, vit d soft gel and vit k2 mk7 also 15 mg t3 4x daily.

[roslin in reply to jan61]

Hi jan I know exactly how you feel having these horrid adrenal rushes. It feels like you want to crawl out of your skin, I went to the Dr and she prescribed sertraline!!!!, she had no idea what it was. I have stopped taking that now. I started HC beginning of October so havent been on it that long either. I initially increased to 27.5 mcg divided into 4 doses and it suppressed the surges. I then got in my head that I needed to reduce to 20 as that was the recomendation on NICE for addisons disease. The surges started up again and I have now increased to 27.5 again. I found it very hard to take it 4 times a day because it is important ot take it after food so I now do 7am 10mcg, 12pm 7.5mcg, 5pm 5mcg. I also have noticed that if I get too tired the surges can start so I make sure I go to bed before it starts.

i found these web sites useful

addisons.org.uk/topics/mt_i...

addisons-network.co.uk/ente...

roslin

[jan61 in reply to roslin]

Thats really usfull roslin. I think I need to take a little more. The adrenal surges started last night after last dose which was 2.5 so may be I need to take 5 mg bed time. Really nice to speak to someone that knows what im on about although I am sorry you have been through it. Do you have any one over seeing your use of HC or you on your own like me?

[roslin in reply to jan61]

I have had to do it myself and it is slightly scary. Dr skinner knew I had started and said he was happy if it helped and it has certainly made a huge difference. You just have to get the dose right and learn to stress dose. I have had a bad viral infection over new year have increased HC by 1/2 for almost a week. I am going to test my active B12 this week as I suspect it is low even though I am normal/ high on GP test. Have a look at B12d website, search hypoadrenalism protocol, it is very interesting

Roslin

[jan61 in reply to roslin]

Yeah thanks for that I will take a look. Im finding the whole self medicating scarey and ive only been doing it 3 days!

jan