Susan

I’m glad your doctor was vigilant enough to order the CT of your adrenals....and better still for you, that nothing sinister was found. However how much problem have you or others had getting doctors to admit that replacement dose steroids, do actually cause side-effects??? We (the users) are all convinced of it but the doctors are another story. I know anecdotal evidence is not enough for them and rightly so. However when will all the little pieces come together and they have a plan to help counteract these side effects, as part of our treatment, dietary or otherwise? 

I was having this conversation with my sister last night and her endo says repeatedly that, steroids at a replacement dose, don’t cause side-effects!  HELLO!  I have to ask, are these doctors digging their heads in the sand? Yes, it might only be a replacement dose (or close to) but ..... for 40/50/60 years??   Do they really know? How many generations of people have got old on lifelong steroids YET ...practically none, as some of us are pretty close to being the first generation basically who have had it since infancy/childhood. SO how can doctors know what is in store for us?

I look at my younger sister and she is a walking picture of all the things that can go awry with  steroids. Perhaps it was early management, perhaps it’s the type of steroid she has been on for many years, who knows......but I fail to see how a doctor can deny that she has not been affected, even with a ’replacement’ dose. My problems are somewhat different and perhaps don’t fall into the ’pharmaceutical textbook steroid side-effect category’ so easily but the question remains, are they effects that are yet to be seen, as arising from the lifelong use of these meds or from the condition itself?

None of us would prefer the alternative of not taking our medications. We realise we need them, but we certainly do not need denial that our many and varied textbook symptoms are all in our head.