What was his doseage prior to taking him off?  I would cut down before cutting out.  Especially with a 16 year old boy.  He hasn’t finished growing (need a lot of retained salt flowing through the cells to keep growing) yet and if he plays sports or is especially active physically, I would be very hesitant.  I would be interested to know what his last plasma renin level was and what dose he was on when it was taken.  And what it is now that he is off it altogether.

I believe that even what Betsy did would be better than taking him off it.  Every other day, perhaps?

My SW daughter is only 2 but she was on .2mg then .1mg (kidney maturation thing) and now we cut her pill in 1/2 for .5mg because her plasma renin was rather low.  Her blood pressure was up there for awhile and just now has begun to maintain. 

I agree with the earlier post, however, that perhaps the retention in the cortef is getting him by because just quantity of salt intake isn’t going to do it.

Bottom line question is, is it possible?  Yes, absolutely.  We all know how different each child is with CAH even when you are within the ranges of each specific description.  SW can be more like SV and vice versa.  Like any scale there are infinite possibilities.  Your son might have the DNA of a salt waster, but the symptoms of a SV (and we recently discussed the difference between severe salt wasters and simple salt wasters).  The miracle is that every persons body compensates to the best of its ability and like the kidneys, adrenal glands and all the other parts, if one gets the idea that the other isn’t working then it might try to pull some extra weight.  Our body parts are amazing like that.

God Bless,

RebeccaM