Addison's Disease Support Group

My story below may seem a bit narcissistic. I apologize for that. The thing is... I feel so much better... and I want to tell someone!

I was diagnosed on May 13 with Primary Adrenal insufficiency. I had dental implant surgery in September of last year. At that point I started losing weight. I thought that it was simply because It was hard to eat since my mouth was sore for a very long time. I didn't feel bad though at this point, although I started getting comments about how nice my tan was. I thought that was strange, since I'm not outdoors that much. The real problem started in December. I had my yearly physical on December 23, and everything came back fine. On Christmas day, my wife and I slept late. When I got out of bed to do my morning business in the bathroom, I got really dizzy. I tried to make it back to the bed, but the next thing I remember is my wife freaking out and me lying on the floor. Things got worse fast. We were getting ready to move back to Texas, where I was starting a new job in Jan. 5. We had to pack, get the house ready to sell, tie up loose ends at my old job, etc. I started getting really nauseous and felt bloated all the time. Simply had no appetite. The only relief seemed to come from Gas-X. And I could hardly do anything without having to rest and catch my breadth. This went on for a long time. (I should of gone to the doctor, but who wants to call in sick at a new job? How stupid was that?) My weight fell from 175 to 148. I finally started feeling a little better in February, but I still wasn't able to eat much, and the weight stayed off. When the new job started getting stressful, back came the dizziness and the nausea, along with really stiff joints and a shooting pain down my left leg. My wife said that I was aging before here ayes, and that if I wasn't going to the doctor, she'd find one to come to me. She found a wonderful doctor that did house calls. At first he though it may be stomach related and prescribed a proton blocker in case it was an ulcer and some prescription strength Gas-X. They only created really painful gas. He also sent me to have a slew of labs done. No luck with those! The next week, he had me go back for more labs (my hyper pigmentation was the clue) to check my cortisol level. Bingo! It came back at .06. Next was the ACTH stimulation. Bingo again. No increase in cortisol levels. He immediately put me on hydrocortizone and had some other tests (MRI, X-rays) run to make sure it wasn't a tumor or something else causing it. Almost immediately I started feeling better. After only one day, my wife said my face was fuller and my eyes were not as sunken. Labs one week later showed normal cortisol levels, but my ACTH was over super high. I guess I'll be keeping the tan for a while. I saw the endo the first time this week; she put me on Synthroid, since it looks like my thyroid may be a bit affected too. I've been on the hydrocortizone since 5/13. I feel great and I've gained about five pounds. I'm eating like a horse and have good energy. I can only pray that it keeps going this way!

If you read it this far, thanks for "listening." I know the forum is really for questions, but I really just had to share. We are new in town, my new job laid me off on May 12, and we don't know anyone here. But I feel good!

-Jim C
Posted on 06/06/09, 09:06 pm