Liz, the reason for a "regimented" meds schedule, is to try to keep a constant level of cortisol in the blood stream--with no gaps. A gap, where we wait too long before giving the next dose, means that cortisol levels drop, androgens rise--its' a teeny tiny period of complete non-suppression, as though they were never on Cortef at all. A tiny period of time, but where "noncompliance" is an ongoing problem, those tiny periods can add up. For kids who produce no cortisol, you want to keep that flow as steady as you can. For less-affected CAH kids, it's not so important. For all of us, there is theoretically a little overlap built into our meds schedules. Every 8 hours really means every 6-8 hours, 3 times a day... does that make sense? laurie