Still doing better

I am getting used to the cortisol now and my doctor added Florinef to get my heart rate down out of the 90s and my BP up over 100.  So far it is working well, I am able to function throughout most of the day (though any kind of mental or physical stress still wipes me out).  Next step is learning how to stress dose so that I can pretty much go back to being completely normal and add in some more exercise that doesn't include housework LOL.

The biggest benefit has to be emotionally, for the first time in a long while I do not feel like a nut case, I am not depressed, I don't cry at the drop of a hat and I don't spend hours and days in bed trying to feel better.  I enjoy being out and around people more as well which makes me feel like less of a hermit.  In addition to all of that,  I sleep a normal 8-9 hours a night, my skin is no longer dry and flaky, my blood pressure is up to 110/70 is for the most part unless I am stressed, I can tolerate being outside and doing some garden work.  I still do tire very easily and have to really watch my stress and rest enough, but it is more of a need to rest instead of a forced to rest situation which is still an improvement.

It has been so amazing to find something that works for me.  My doc is actually considering that I may have Addison's disease since all of the adrenal support therapy that I had been doing did not do anything and I continued to get worse.  They are running a bunch more blood work and meanwhile I am trying to figure out the lowest effective dose of the cortisol for me. Chances are I will be on the Cortef/Florinef for at least a year to try and let my adrenals heal themselves then I will slowly try to wean off.  I may need to up my dose of Florinef since I am still having trouble maintain a blood pressure that is above 110 during any kind of stress.  At this point as good as it makes me feel I am fine with being on it forever if need be - just to be normal again.  I would love to start to be able to work out and gain back some of the muscle mass I have lost over the past seven years.

It still boggles me what havoc one autoimmune disease can wreak on a body and I wonder how much of it was the crappy food and bad processing methods that I ate for so many years.