Post by marigaux on Mar 20, 2009 12:42:24 GMT -5
Hi everyone
I'd be really grateful for some help re my husband. He took his temperature a few of months ago as he was feeling tired and has difficulty losing weight. It was really low, about 96, at 4pm. So he started taking thyroxine (25), gradually increasing every 6 weeks until he was at 75mcg, when he had some sort of an adrenal 'crisis' and immediately had to stop taking thyroxine. (Before that he was starting to feel better on it). We have to self-treat by the way as doctors have said his levels are normal. So he then started taking prednisolone, 2.5mg then 5 days later increased to 5mg. He says he's feeling much better on that (although not 100%) and was ready to increase to 7.5mg in order to tolerate thyroxine, if in fact he ends up needing it at all as we're hoping the prednisolone may be all he needs.
Unfortunately our plans have been scuppered as he had a blood test done recently for testosterone (as he takes replacement) and cortisol, although we didn't know they were testing for cortisol. But as he's taking prednisolone, his cortisol level was really low and the docs were concerned, they asked him if he was feeling dizzy and he lied and said yes although he actually feels better than he did before.
The problem is they now want to start him on hydrocortisone and refuse to give him any more than 15mg/day as they say there is now a "new way of thinking" regarding cortisol supplementation and they never give any one more than 20mg at a push. What could be the reason for this? I'm confused as I thought from reading this board that 30mg was necessary and less than 20mg was worse than useless? I'm in England by the way. We don't know what to do now; I don't know if they're right and for him to just take 15mg HC and if it's ok to stop the pred completely or whether he should take the 15mg HC along with say 2.5mg pred?
HELP!!!
Jade
I'd be really grateful for some help re my husband. He took his temperature a few of months ago as he was feeling tired and has difficulty losing weight. It was really low, about 96, at 4pm. So he started taking thyroxine (25), gradually increasing every 6 weeks until he was at 75mcg, when he had some sort of an adrenal 'crisis' and immediately had to stop taking thyroxine. (Before that he was starting to feel better on it). We have to self-treat by the way as doctors have said his levels are normal. So he then started taking prednisolone, 2.5mg then 5 days later increased to 5mg. He says he's feeling much better on that (although not 100%) and was ready to increase to 7.5mg in order to tolerate thyroxine, if in fact he ends up needing it at all as we're hoping the prednisolone may be all he needs.
Unfortunately our plans have been scuppered as he had a blood test done recently for testosterone (as he takes replacement) and cortisol, although we didn't know they were testing for cortisol. But as he's taking prednisolone, his cortisol level was really low and the docs were concerned, they asked him if he was feeling dizzy and he lied and said yes although he actually feels better than he did before.
The problem is they now want to start him on hydrocortisone and refuse to give him any more than 15mg/day as they say there is now a "new way of thinking" regarding cortisol supplementation and they never give any one more than 20mg at a push. What could be the reason for this? I'm confused as I thought from reading this board that 30mg was necessary and less than 20mg was worse than useless? I'm in England by the way. We don't know what to do now; I don't know if they're right and for him to just take 15mg HC and if it's ok to stop the pred completely or whether he should take the 15mg HC along with say 2.5mg pred?
HELP!!!
Jade