Danny, Valerie, Katrina, Shaun P and Sandra: Thank you all for your input.

We are trying to do the high protein diet and have been since January. Blake gets more than average exercise-swim team, soccer, school P.E. and tennis at various times of the year. He seems energetic, but does tire out a bit at times. Maybe because of the excess weight.  We definitely think that the cortisone is a contributor to his size. He is 4’3" and 94 lbs. Because he was small and a late birthday, we started school a year late. He is still the shortest kid in the 5th grade.

Between all of the different Endos (5 at Children’s hospital in Oakland, CA and 1 at San Francisco State) they have all said his test results have been right in the range that they want them and they concurred on the doses he was taking. His doses have been adjusted, but not as often (only twice, I believe) since he went on the pill form at about 6-7 years. I thought that was odd, but his current doctor said his test levels were "perfect". I have also noticed in the last couple of summers that he didn’t get as tan as he did when younger.  I suspect that he got more than he needed right when we switched to the 5 mg tablets.

 The only thing that doctors were not all in concert on was the timing of the doses. One of them said twice a day was fine and that it didn’t matter that much. (We kept it at 3x a day anyway.)

Blake has tracked along in the 5th percentile for height since he was born, but has crept up to the 95th percentile in weight. We have been charting it though the doctors. After reading all of the stories and receiving several E-Mails from this site, I am convinced more than ever that he is being over suppressed. I also think the timing may more critical than we thought. Although the Endo explained the cycle of cortisone demand by the body, he did not suggest nor did we change the timing or number of his doses. He is taking 1 1/2  5mg tabs at 7am, 3pm and 9 to 1opm (and florinef at 10). I had a great suggestion from Laura about spreading the doses out and lowering the total amount. She has had success and we are going to explore this with our Endo in a very proactive way this week. I agree with Shaun that these folks don’t have a lot of initiative. Children’s is a great hospital, but the place is a bureacratic factory when it comes to outpatient services in the endo dept.

Again, thanks for all your help! I wish this site had been available 11 years ago!