| Groups search result 2 for "core level" adrenal |
Hey folks.
Ever since about 1991, steroids have been, for me, the anti-christ. At
that time, I had chronic headaches of (then) unknown origin. A topical
injection of steroids into the naso pharynx got rid of them for about
thirty-six hours. This was encouraging, so my doctor perscribed a
"dosepak" of medrol; seven days of progressively smaller doses. About
24 hours after the last dose, I crashed horribly.
Corticoid steroids such as medrol, prednisone, and dexamethazone are
synthetic substitutes for the hormones produced naturally in the
adrenal cortex. When the body realizes that it has far more than the
normal levels of these hormones roaming around (because you've taken a
synthetic steroid, putting lots of extra into the body), it tells the
adrenal cortex to drastically reduce its production of them. Then,
when you stop taking the artificial steroids, suddenly you have none
of the substitute.. and very little of the real thing either. That's
the whole reason for the doespak with the progressively smaller doses.
the idea is that, if you wean the body off it slowly, it will
gradually increase its own production of the hormones. For me, though,
that didn't seem to happen. And, as I learned, a severe deficit of
corticoid steroids is really, really bad.
24 hours after I stopped taking the medrol, I felt worse than I'd ever
felt in my life. Imagine waking up one morning with a horrible flu.
You're not sneezing or coughing yet, but you can tell that this is
going to be a bad one because you feel completely awful and can barely
get out of bed. Then, someone calls you to tell you that your best
friend just died. Incredible, crushing depresssion sets in. Then,
someone calls to tell you that the IRS is auditing your most recent
tax return and has mentioned the word "felony". You become incredibly
anxious. Finally, someone rubber cements a gizmo to
your neck that runs a low voltage electrical charge throughout your
body.
It was an unberable combination of fatigue, depression, anxiety and
general misery. It's uncomfrtable to even think about it now. I
thought I was going to go insane. It lasted about 60 hours.
So I was careful about steroids from then on, even refusing a shot of
celestone that my allergist wanted to give me and listing them on the
"allergic to any drugs?" part of every doctor's 'new patient'
questionaire. And then... one day... it was suggested that I try
Beconase, a steroid noise spray. I was assured that it wouldn't enter
the blood stream in sufficient quantities to do anything; it would
just reduce inflamation in the sinuses. So I took Beconase for over a
year.
Out of the blue, one day, I started getting dizzy, spacy. I couldn't
concentrate, wanted to sleep all the time. The docs assured me that
this wasn't a problem with my medications. I believed them for about
five minutes. I stopped taking all the meds except the Beconase.
Nothing happened; i was still dizzy and tired. Then, I stopped taking
the Beconase. Within 48 hours, I was depressed and sick. I felt a lot
like when I'd withdrawn from Medrol, but not as intensley. My family
doctor did a urinalysis to see if I was low on adrenal hormones. I was
"a little" low, he said, but not sufficiently to cause the symptoms I
was experiencing.
After about nine months of being miserable with only modest
improvements, I saw a kinesiologist in Atlanta who gave me a product
called Core Level Adrenals manufactured by a company called
Nutri-West. I took it for two weeks, experienced some side effects but
nothing too dramatic, and was back to my old self. (Which wasn't
perfect, what with the chronic headaches and hypoglycemia and all, but
which was definitely much better than how I was during the
steroid/adrenal problems).
Am I unusually sensitive to these steroids? I guess one would have to
assume that, based on the evidence. But I asked an endocrinologist if
he thought these reactions indicated that I had some sort of problem
with my adrenal gland... some sort of weakness, etc. He said "no." So,
I guess, make of it what you will.
-Cliff
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