diagnosed with secondary adrenal insufficiency

[LindaB60]

Well i wrote to you about my problems with thyroid medication. Well, mention i thought it was adrenal low cortisol. Well, i finally found an Endocrinologist to perform the cortrosyn stim test...not good. Came back very low. Also very low in DHEA, Progesterone. I have been getting chronic epidurals for my back every three months...i was in pain since back surgery in 2004. I kept asking pain management if these shots (with steriods) would they affect my sodium potassium pump activity causing low cortisol. And they would say on not that much. It is not that much systemic. But this endo I went to show me a lot of studies that show it does. So now I am own hydrocortisone, 15mg in the morning, lunch 5mg and dinner 5mg. And later I will add my armour with levothroid back in after the adrenals get betters.

So you see people do know their bodies! doctors should listen more.

LB


This discussion is related to fatigue with armour.

[LindaB60]

Hey that is probably true! because progesterone increases uptake of zinc and magnesium which is essential for thyroid function. I just asked my doc to check my dhea plasma blood and salvia. It showed very low DHEA and Estrogen and Progesterone. wow! I had a partial hysterectomy in 1997 when i was 37, now 47 but still had one ovary. I kept asking about menopause because I had all these symptoms and the obgyn would say no you are not..FSH is not elevated. But really I am all my hormones are extremely low.

I just found out 4 days ago! Thank goodness ...now maybe I can get balance better and my thyroid will work better. They gave me DHEA with Biest in a cream and a progesterone pill by compounding pharmacy. The progesterone pill is to be taken at night. I have a pill for progest because doc said i have yeast infections so he did not want me to take cream. So did your progesterone work. I hope so. This hormone stuff is a mess with some women. Terrible! :(
thanks
LB

[ollie5]

Interesting discussion.  I tried a Levoxyl-Armour combination, and my TSH went down very low and I was still exhausted and still not losing weight. Since my TSH was too low on the T4-Armour combo, I started taking Armour alone and I was still exhausted all the time and unable to lose weight.  One doc has mentioned the adrenal insufficiency issue and is trying to get me to do a saliva test for adrenal deficiency, but I have been too exhausted to get up and fiddle with testing my saliva at 7:00 a.m. in the morning.  If my adrenals are fine, he wants to put me on human growth hormone.

In the meantime, after a year on Armour, I recently switched to Synthroid because I didn't find Armour to be the end-all, be-all that its advocates claim it to be and I wanted to give straight T4 a whirl.  I certainly don't feel any worse on straight T4 than I felt on Armour.

One thing I can say is that if your progesterone is low, you might want to consider supplementation. I just started taking supplemental progesterone and I think it is helping me feel less exhausted (presumably because it is increasing my quality of sleep).  Some docs (like Elizabeth Vliet) advocate that exhaustion will not improve until you "optimize" your ovarian function.

I am finding that fatigue is a very complex issue and that thyroid supplementation alone is not enough for everyone to feel better, whether it is Armour or straight T4.

Good luck in your efforts to regain your health and vitality.