Medrol vs HC?

Does anyone know the possible benefits of Medrol as compared to HC in someone with adrenal fatigue? When would Medrol be preferred to HC? Has anyone tried both?

[gabkad]

Here's the converter for dosage: globalrph.com/steroid.cgi

methylprednisolone is 4 times as strong as hydrocortisone, milligram to milligram.

[Hidden in reply to gabkad]

Thanks! As far as I understand it, methyldpredisolone is converted to cortisol in the body somehow? It also seems it won't show up on labs, but will suppress your own cortisol production, meaning you have to go by symptoms and not labs while on it?

[gabkad in reply to Hidden]

Hydrocortisone is easier to use for maintenance of physiological levels and easier to gradually reduce by very small amounts.

[Finola]

My sons take cortisol for adrenal insufficiency, and have medrol for emergencies only in cases where there is a need to get a large dose very fast.

Whey not use HC instead - do you want to suppress your adrenals?

[Hidden in reply to Finola]

My doctor put me on Medrol because, according to her, I tend to retain fluid, and HC will only make that problem worse...whereas I am beginning to suspect that HC would be better for me.

The only advantage I can think of is that Medrol can be taken once a day, whereas HC needs to be multi dosed, if I'm not mistaken...?

[Finola in reply to Hidden]

My experience of HC is that if you retain fluid your dose is too high and that it is a very good indicator. With medrol I assume that is is difficult to keep to a physiologic dose?

What dose are you taking?

My sons take their main dose of HC in the morning and then a small one at lunchtime and that seems to work well for them.

Is your doctor a hormone specialist or endo?

[Hidden in reply to Finola]

I currently take 4 mg of Medrol daily. My doctor is a hormone specialist.

[Hidden in reply to Finola]

Finola, can I ask how much HC your sons take daily? It sounds reasonable to take most of it in the morning, as the body makes more cortisol then.

Anna

[Finola in reply to Hidden]

Hi Anna,

One son takes 35mg daily - 30 and 5. The other son takes 25mg - 15 and 10. the dosage is as per instructions from Dr H. According to him 50% of the dose is lost in the digestion process so they are not on a total replacement dose.

If they are ill or doing something particularly stressful then they take more. They are having to learn when they need to increase the dose or take additional doses. It's much like the diabetic who has to take more insulin if they eat something starchy/sugary or less if they have been very active etc.

How are you doing?

[Hidden in reply to Finola]

So and so. It feels like Medrol is not working anymore. I am more and more tempted to try HC instead.

The doctor who put me on Medrol was trained by H, and is now in private practice.

I am thinking about ordering HC myself, try it, and see how it works.

I agree with what you said earlier; with Medrol, it's more difficult to find a physiological dose. I have also been wondering lately if Medrol is more suppressive than HC...? That in turn makes me wonder if that will heal my adrenals, or just suppress them further, until they end up barely functional? I don't suffer from adrenal insufficiency, "only" adrenal fatigue brought on by years of untreated hypothyroidism (Hashimoto's), so I would hate to suppress my adrenals long enough for them to never recover...

[Finola]

Hi Anna,

Wouldn't your doctor give you a script for HC? I'm saying this because the cheapest place I have found to buy it is in a pharmacy in Brussels on prescription. It seems odd that your doctor is so keen to give you something which is not bio-identical when Dr H is so keen on using bio-identicals.

I recall that you live in mainland Europe - could you go to Dr H's clinic? I just feel that possibly you need a new eye to look at you and the meds you are taking. Sometimes it can be difficult for people to either see or admit when they have made a mistake and doctors are people too - although sometimes they think they are gods (in my bitter experience). So, you may be with a doctor who is kind of stuck or has run out of ideas?

It seems to me that the whole area of adrenal fatigue versus insufficiency is a very grey one. There are no clear liines of demarkation and it may be that your adrenals can't recover fully. My own experience and that of my sons leads me to beleive that adrenals functioning at less than full health is very common and that lots of us are born with deficiencies or develop them in early childhood which are not bad enough to cause complete collapse but bad enough that we just don't cope well with daily stresses and lack of vitamins in the food chain etc etc. The adrenals just won't recover fully from this, is my view. So. we have to make the best of the situation we are in. I was very worried about my sons taking HC, fludro, DHEA etc, but seeing them really engaging with life now as opposed to the half lives both of them were living has helped me to see HC as being really necessary for them to be whole. As that is the case then to my mind taking physiologic doses will only enhance their health.

It's a tough road to wellness and the attitude of mainstream medicine to physiologic dosing of HC doesn't help at all. My aunt was killed by her GP with 40 years of massive doses of steroids for asthma. She had the classic symptoms, thinning skin, buffalo hump, bruising and terrible weight loss and they put her death down to unknown illness. The doses your body needs will only help you.

Finola x

[Hidden]

I am sorry to say not all Hertoghe doctors are so open-minded...I was also put on Medrol, the reason given was that I tended to retain fluid, and it's been h--- weaning off it. I've been on it for four years, managed to work my way down from 6 to 4 mg daily, but I seem to be stuck there...as soon as I try to decrease it further, I feel like I cannot function. I could live with that, I guess, as soon as I knew it was not dangerous in any way, and that I would eventually feel better once my own adrenals started functioning again...but how do you know when your own adrenal glands shut down completely, and how fast, or even if, they can kick back in again??!??!