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could anyone tell me if they have used these, for how long and what effect theyve had on you. My sister has been on them for 35 years and has just phoned and told me to get some. Obviously its a big decision and any input would be helpful. What do they do for people like us. She had hers for asthma initially but she has other issues too.

Are you considering a cream or Prednisone or ? and to treat what symptoms? I know a little about this but am unsure which medication you are referring to.

HI jId have no idea dont know anything about it except I think some people have used it to treat adrenals

Tracy, This is my understanding: Steroid medications work by mimicing the natural hormones in your body but come with a host of nasty side effects! Particularly to sensitive people like us. Natural hormones are now available (natural as in identical to the hormones in your body not herbal) and these are far safer to use because they are the same as your own hormones your body doesn't react badly to them ie eliminating the nasty side effects. You can now get saliva tests done to access your hormonal state to see what you are low on if any or alternatively a lot of people find using natural progesterone cream is enough particularly if it is a thyroid issue. Apparently your body does have the ability to convert some hormones into what is needed. You can buy it OTC in USA but in NZ we need a Dr's script not sure about where you live. I would have to say for symptom relief Natural Progesterone has helped me more than any other thing. I've used it now for 8 years. As you probably already know one of the things mercury does to you is stuff up your hormones and natural progesterone helps to balance them. It is also known as the happy hormone as it helps you to feel better about your situation. Hope this helps some, Jid.

thanks jid Tracy

tracy,

i'm also curious about this myself - did your doctor prescribe this for your thyroid? my doctor just upped my dose of armour thyroid (natural pig thyroid) because my energy, fatigue, and brain fog don't seem to be getting any better with the two lower doses we've tried. and he says the next possibility would be to get really aggressive and try LOW DOSE hydrocortisone, which was promoted by some 1967 book....whose author I can't remember right now. he says that although it is technically a steroid, it is such a low dose that he wouldn't even call it that.....

he knows that i like to do my own research before agreeing to any new treatment, so he just gave me a heads up in advance that this is an option to consider if i don't respond to the armoir thyroid pills. i don't know what to think, and i haven't done the research on it yet myself. once i find the name of that author, i will post it here in case you want to check it out.

~tia

Tracy

I wrote out a long response to this last night and then lost it!! So here goes with a shortened version! I was put on 5mg Prednisolone by my endo (this is synthetic cortisol, rather than hydrocortisone, which is identical to what the body produces itself. It is stronger and lasts longer in the body than HC, which only lasts four hours). I had an adrenal crash last Christmas due to taking T4 only thyroid meds, which crashed my already very weak adrenals. I was bedridden for four weeks, and housebound for months after. It was my bleakest time.

I did 24 hour urine and blood tests, and from that he was able to put me on a physiological dose of cortisol, that it, I am only replacing what my body cannot produce itself, because of the mercury. Horror stories about steroids have come about because of people being put on pharmacological doses, ie doses way in excess of what the adrenals produce themselves, which effectively shuts the adrenals down, sometimes for good. It is this fear of suppression which makes steroids the big baddie in many peoples' eyes. Weight gain and high blood sugar are the side effects of too much cortisol. On the other hand, too little cortisol is also bad - it weakens your immune system, leaving you open to viruses and bugs, it affects digestion and absorption, meaning that most hypoadrenal people are skinny and can't put on weight (that was me), and obviously, causes fatigue and depression.

I am not saying I am happy taking steroids, but I can say it has given me my life back to some extent. I have gone from being housebound, may be able to do one thing a day, to being out and about with my young children (albeit carefully, and slowly). The constant fluey muzzy feeling has gone, as has the bleakest depression I have ever experienced - the one that made me want to commit suicide. It has also enabled me to increase my Armour to two grains, which is also helping my body and slowly returning me to greater functionality. Adrenals and thyroid work in tandem - when the thyroid is underperforming, the adrenals take the strain. Cortisol is necessary to drive the thyroid hormone into the cells - if you aren't producing enough, you are not using your thyroid hormone. You must do the one with the other.

Of course I have concerns about coming off i t (you have to slowly wean off AFTER you have found your optimum thyroid dose, and allowed the adrenals to rest and heal from constantly taking the strain of the underactive thyroid) - this can take 9 -12 months. And that is if your adrenals are not too damaged. It is possible that I may need to take them for the rest of my life if mercury has damaged my adrenals beyond repair. This would not surprise me.

I tried the glandulars and other forms of adrenal support before going on the Pred. It wasn't enough, and I kept crashing. But if you're thinking about taking HC, I would get some saliva cortisol tests done, and post your results on this forum to get a view on whether you need to take HC

http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/NaturalThyroidHormonesADRENALS/

It is a big decision, and, in my view, not one to take without proper testing, or proper awareness about the consequences. However, there are good stories over on the Natural Thyroid Hormones website about people taking HC to increase their Armour dose, getting to the right dose, and then weaning off HC completely.

Hope this helps.

Nicola

thanks Nicola my symptoms sound a lot like yours I am well skinny but am eating ok, the only worry I have about taking anything is that last year my immune system was only just existent. Do you know if a GP can test your immune system function? I had mine done at a private hospital. My other symptom is Im always freezing. I just dont want to deplete my immune sytem any more because if I have this root canal infection I'll have nothing to fight it off. Gets so confusing . Can docs check for infection/bacteria. Mine are reluctant to do anything but hand out Prozac. Wouldnt it be great if you could stand on a machine like when you weigh yourself and it told you exactly what was going on in your body

sorry missed the bit about the immune system so possibly the steroid could help this?

I took hydrocortisone for about ten days but it didn't seem to help me. However, it may help you.

I tried to take the cortisol test but my mouth was so dry that I couldn't produce the small amount of saliva needed to fill the first tube.

The answer is yes, the steroid will help your immune system. When you have an infection, your adrenals produce a lot more cortisol to help the immune system fight it. If they are underfunctioning, your body cannot fight the infection. I had colds that lasted WEEKS before I went on the Pred. Being freezing cold is a sure sign of low thyroid - do you take your temperature? Anything permanently below 37 is low, and a sign the thyroid is underperforming. You should take your temp three times a day to get an idea of what is going on. Have a look at this grid to see low thyroid / adrenal symptoms:

http://www.drrind.com/scorecardmatrix.asp

most people are a mixture of the two - it sounds like you veer towards the hypoadrenal. You probably need to treat your thyroid as well - not with T4 only meds like Synthroid or Euthyrox, but a combination T3 / T4 med like Armour. Mercury toxic people can't convert the T4 to T3 - the mercury knocks out the necessary enzyme for this, so taking a T4 only med will at best do nothing, and at worse could really crash your adrenals. This is what happened to me. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

If you are hypoadrenal and don't treat with HC or Pred, recovery is likely to be long and slow, because you don't really have the necessary hormones for your body to function. You can recover them with bed rest, good diet and NO stress, but we all live in the real world. Who has no stress these days? I have three kids, and that's enough stress to bust even healthy adrenals, never mind those which are spiked with mercury.

Before I treated my adrenals I was doing the diet and everything, but slowly went downhill. I feel better and brighter than I did, though far from well. I think adrenal support is also necessary if you are chelating, as that is hard on the body. Even on the dose I am on, I only do one round of chelation a month - it's all I can handle and want to put my body through at the moment. I am concentrating on thyroid / adrenals and controlling the candida through diet, probiotics and oil of oregano.

Hope this is of some help Tracy. Have you read the Amalgam Illness by Andy Cutler? He talks all about this course of action - ie treating the adrenals and thyroid to feel better while the body detoxes.

Best
Nicola

Ten days is actually not enough time to even notice a difference if you adrenals are bad,it takes 1 to 2 months to see improvements,when severe,and 9-12 months on average for recovery.
I am personally yaking isocort,i have been on it for 3 weeks and see some signs of improvement,but hc would probably make me feel better faster,but i don't wanna start it yet.
I also have HC but have yet to try it,i will try isocort as not rally as strong as hc.

Why don't you check the PDR before taking steroids.
Just because progesterone cream is bioidentical does'nt mean it's safe.

Hi Anon,
I do not have access to a copy of PDR. What does it say?