Following the Clues

First clue, the pill pack ended last week and the adrenals have never liked major hormonal changes. This time they were copacetic for a few days until deciding that oh, yeah, I really did need to hit the wall at 60mph.

Bam. I was down for the count.

Second clue, headache that would not go away. Couldn't touch it, not even alternating Tylenol and Advil (in large quantities). Sleep only provided marginal relief.

Third clue, eye burning fatigue, but no heavy limbed-ness. Quickly dismissed as Doing Too Much and Being Too Busy.

Fourth clue, when the toddler touched my leg, I just about screamed from the pain. Fatigued muscles that would not recover, even with rest. Sad zombie shuffle was the default gait. Only the adrenals make me hurt/walk like that.

Fifth clue, the small muscles of my feet began to painfully spasm. This is a classic sign of adrenal weirdness for me.

Sixth clue, blood pressure was being weird. Not the huge zig zags I've have before, but I had some 20 point drops that made me symptomatic and went lower than feels good for me.

Final clue, my life was getting smaller, not bigger. Napping for the better part of the afternoon while the toddler watched cartoon after cartoon. Just letting everything slide, except exercise, which I dragged myself through by sheer force of will.

Based on this, I took 5mg to see what would happen. Wow, what a difference. I felt awake and alert. My legs stopped aching. Still struggled a bit with exercise, but it was 95F out, which doesn't help. However, the exercise didn't tank me for the day like it had been.

Now I don't know if I should take more tomorrow or stop or what? I would bet money that the ACTH challenge was normal. So I should not even need steroids. Right? I should be free. Right?

5mg isn't even a physiologic replacement dose for Hydrocortisone. I can't be doing that badly if that's all it takes to turn me around, right?

So why can't I live my life without the steroids?

Is it the exercise? Should I stop? I'm not doing much because of the knee problem. Mostly walking, but it's been very hot. I slowly walked 2 miles today and played 30 minutes of light tennis (i.e. we can't really hit the ball well enough to get a real game going, so spend most of our time picking up the balls). Is this really too much?????????