How do you go about treatment for Adrenals safely? Is the Natural Cortisol safe?

[MTi2010]

I have been treated with Natural Cortisol for Adrenal Insuficiency but eventhought they say it is not the Synthetic Hormone and it is safe, I have daubts about its safety. I still do not know if it is a Corticosteroid or not??? It was given to me by a Fibromyalgia doctor saying that it will only give a chance to the Adrenals to rest and replanish while another holistic doctor has told me that it can actually make the Adrenals more lazy and they will start producing less and less of what they should be producing. Instead of the Cortisol the second doctor recommends supplements like Adrenal Responce and other things. Which doctor is wright?

[rumpled]

Any replacement, be it natural or synthetic, puts the adrenals to sleep. They do not rest and replenish, they rest and atrophy.

Short term usage of any corticosteroid *may* be ok, but adrenals are unpredictable and I have seen it go both ways - where the adrenals did not wake up or the adrenals went into overdrive and caused Cushing's. Or it may cause nothing. It is an adrenal lottery.

But natural or not, you are in the lottery.

[KimQ]

I am curious.  Do you know what the natural cortisol is that MTi refers to?  Is it actually a steroid or is it something else?

[Laura1016]

I have hashis, and adrenal fatique.  As soon as I went menopausal my sleep became a disaster.  I have been an insomniac for 1 1/2 years now.  This took toll on adrenals and went to exhaustive stage.  Saliva test showed I was low in cortisol, progesterone, estogen and testosterone, (despite being on BIO HRT)   my doc upped my transdermal HRT, E2+E3+P+T which restored energy, less muscle and joint stiffness/lethergy!!..But my sleep is even worse.  I used to be able to at least fall asleep, but experienced terrible fragmentation of sleep, now I can't even fall asleep.  I'm now dependent on lunesta for about 4 to 5 hours sleep a night.  I almost would like to go back to feeling crappy all the time, just to be able to fall asleep on my own again.  
Would the bio identical hormones be considered corticosteroids?  I don't want to be on the increased dose if they are facilitating lazy adrenals.

[Sali44]

Dr. Frank Shallenberger is very knowledgeable about this subject.  He has a newsletter, Real Cures, that I subscribe to.  He has found that some people can get off the
hydrocortisone after a few months, but others, himself included, were not born with adrenal glands strong enough to withstand the big stresses. They will need hydrocortisone for life.  As for myself, I didn't do well on  hydrocortisone.  I take methylprednisolone, 1 mg.  (I cut up a 4 mg tablet).  This works well.  No amount of
natural adrenal boosters did the job for me.  I also take 90 mg of Armour thyroid.