Thanks for your response. I think I may not have explained myself very well. We don't increase his dose for emotional stress. In fact it is almost the opposite. His endo will take emotional stress into consideration to make sure that she doesn't overreact if his readings are just a little high and therefore overmedicate him. I am sure there are different opinions as to emotional stress impacting the bodies' attempt to produce cortisol. On this one though, I tend to agree with his ped endo and his ped that it can. It just intuitively makes sense to me that the body would try to pump up the cortisol to deal with stressful situations, be it physical or mental. And I am sure his draws are quite stressful for him. He is a pudgy little guy and, like me, is impossible to draw from. On his last visit it took 3 trys and finally we had to go for the forehead. (A HUGE THANK YOU to the person who recommended EMLA a few months back. He still gets distressed but I can tell the physical pain of the draw is gone/less.) PS - I would never get mad at someone disagreeing with me. I think that is the beauty of this board. It is wonderful to hear other's views and what their dr.s have told them. I feel like I get a better sense of all the info out there. Plus you have contributed so much to this board. I have learned a lot from your previous posts.