From what I understand, Prednisone is 4 times stronger than hydrocortisone. 1 MG of Prednisone is the equivalent of 4 MG of Hydrocortisone.

5mg Pred + 30 mg Hydro = 50 mg hydrocortisone. That's an insanely high amount for a normal morning dose. Please call your Dr and tell him what you are doing. I think it can be dangerous to take that much long term because it raises your blood pressure and ocular pressure too much (inside your eyeballs).

I would be very careful taking that much. I had cushing before having my adrenals out and the side effects of my body producing to much corisol were horrible it caused severe nerve damage to my large muscle groups and I have alot of trouble walking, so please be careful I would hate to see someone unknowingly take too much med and have worse things happen

It also causes bone loss if used on a long term basis. I would LOVE to take that much everyday and feel so much better than I do. But the side effects aren't worth it in the long run for your body. A stress dose for me is 60 MG a day, so 50 MG is pretty high. Good luck with your dosage amounts.

I just read all the posts and no one has said what most of us take daily. The usual daily dose is 20 or 30 MG depending on your health situation, spread out through the day.

Lynn

The Mayo said that I was to try over time to get down to 10 mg hydrocorisone in the am and .5 in the evening. I have not been able to do this yet I try about once a week for two days then have to go up but it seems to be getting easier for the days that I am on the low dose. They told me that I need to get my body use to it, my endo I now have also agrees. That is what most people have naturally. With no adrenals it may take sometime before I totally get there but I want to get healthy so I keep pushing on.

You should be afraid of the prednisone, especially at the levels you are on. I have never heard of anyone taking that much steroid unless they were in crisis. Crisis doses are only for very short periods of time (1-2days).
I take 10-5-5mg of HC per day and that is plenty to keep my body functioning well.
Please recheck your high levels with your doctor or get a new one!!!

Good morning Sunshine!!!
I am sorry to hear about the difficulty of finding the proper dose of steroids in order for you to feel good. I was diagnosed with AD in July, and at that time I was told it could take up to 9 months to a year in order to stabilize the amount of steroids so that you can live a somewhat normal life. The only time that I was put on prenisone was when I has severe pneumonia that landed me in the ICU for a week. The effect of the steroid may have saved my life, but left me 30 pounds heavier! NOW, what I am about to tell you and anyone who is reading this....After I recovered from the pneumonia, I discovered that I had a fractured pelvis. I hadn't fell or anything that would cause a fracture, but the fracture just happened (talk about painful). With time it healed. Two days ago, I was planting flowers and when I stood up I heard a "crack" dog gone it. The pain was unbearable. Rushed up to the ER, and as I was waiting, I started to go into a crisis. My husband told the receptionist that I need to get in immediately. Sure enough, I fractured my pelvis AGAIN, however it was another part of the pelvis than before. The doctor FINALLY explained why this is happening to me. With long term steroids, and especially the prenisone, it makes your bones so brittle that you can fracture bones in your body without doing anything, great huh? Sooooo, I suggest that you talk to your Endro and discuss this side effect, along with all the other effects that you have been told about. This disease as the ER doctor told my husband and I is a very serious condition of not treated correctly. I should have given myself an emergency injection right away, and I didn't, and sure enough, I went into a crisis.
Good luck Sunshine!

Do you have an emergency injection kit? I just used mine last week to stay out of the hospital and the ER. It is literally a lifesaver. Ask your endo to prescribe one for you but ask for instructions on how to give yourself the shot. I looked it up on the Internet. It is really easy to do. You should have a back up person who can give you the shot if need be. Good luck.

Thanks, everyone. After reading your notes I will definitely check with my new endo guy. I've had AD since 2000 and I'm familiar with the emergency kit and my normal dose was 20mg in the am and 10mg in the afternoon. My bones have improved because I take a lot of magnesium. .
I've just had trouble lately ( a few times in the past) with not keeping my adrenal at an even keel.
I was told the Prednisone is a low dose but maybe I am adding too much hydrocortisone, I'll have to check with him. It does keep me steady. I am familiar with the emergency kit and my husband gives me shots as needed but I would have to have them weekly the way I'm going.
It's a little scary to be so unsteady for so long.
Thank you all for your impute!!!

Hi All, I walked out of hospital on 5/18/2013 with instructions to take 30mg Hydro @ 8 A.M. and 20mg Hydro @4 P.M. I am currently waiting for a referral to an Endo who may change this, but just wanted to add my .02 about how much per day I am taking, as Lynn mentioned.

My husband is on 10-10-5 of HC at the moment with 0.5 fludro. His Endo wants him down to 10-5-5 but he has only ever been able to get it down to 10-7.5-5 and after 2 weeks at that level he started getting sick.
He has a high stress/high focus job and finds that the harder he works (even sitting down), the more he needs. He has only had Addison's since beginning of October last year (adrenal infarction), so we are hoping it will improve over time and he will be able to reduce to the 10-5-5.

I have just started prednisone temporarily because we are trying to rule out bad Hydrocortisone or maybe I'm having issues with one of the fillers in the HC. I was prescribed 2.5mg prednisone 3/day. Endo said 2.5mg prednisone is equivalent to 10mg of HC. Depending on what each person has going on physically and mentally is dependent on the amount of medication prescribed.

As others have stated higher amounts of steroid use is typically used in crisis and the higher you go the higher your chances are for horrible side effects. It's best to get educated so you can have better control over your medication. As my Endo has said time and time again, it is impossible for a doctor to measure just how much replacement steroid is needed. The technology is there but there hasn't been a device created. It is up to the patient (US) to go off of how we are feeling, figure out if it's an electrolyte imbalance or if we indeed need more steroid. Most cases it's simply an electrolyte imbalance, in which a simple increase in salt will do the trick. While other times, if we are sick or have an ongoing stressful disease we will need higher doses of steroids to maintain, much like how our body would respond.

So while it's easy to say, oh you shouldn't be on that much because of X,Y,Z. None of us truly know what the other is going through. Each situation is different :)

Personally, I tend to get by on 25-30mg of HC daily, although lately I've had to go up to 40-50mg, which is why we are working on trying to figure out what caused the change, hence why I'm on Prednisone.

Good luck and I hope each of us are able to get resolutions to our problems soon!

- Kristen

Do you take fludrocortisone along with your hydrocortisone? I take both, and I only take prednisone for when I am sick or in emergencies. Give your body time to adjust to your dosage before you decide if it needs adjusting. Also, do not adjust your medication without talking to your endo first.