Hi everyone,

I’m now 27yrs old and living with SWCAH.  1yr ago my endo discovered that i was taking too high a dose of Dexamethasone (Decadron 0.5mg) (1 1/2 tablet per day). So she reduced my dose by 1/4 tablet (had to buy a pill splitter). About 10days later i felt much better, my "foggy" head cleared up, i stopped feeling my heart beating in my chest everyday, and my sex drive came back.  She told me my potassium was only a 3, my testosterone was >0.5, and my ACTH, DHEA-S were too low which meant my pituitary gland was "surpressed". Now i never knew there could be such a thing! All my life doctors were struggling at keeping my testosterone down. Now there were trying to increase it!!!

I was told that 1 1/4 should be the lowest i have to go. Now it’s been almost 2 years, and my symptoms came back (but not as strong this time). We did blood work last month, and again my testosterone is extremely low at >0.5! I was told normal healthy adult women should have between 1-4.  So there is a problem again, but i don’t have and endo at the moment (she left her practice to move to another province).

She did tell me that it would be ok to drop my 1/4 in the AM and just take the 1 (0.5mg) decadron tablet at night with my (0.1mg) tablet of florinef. But do it gradually by taking the quarter one day then skipping it the next morning, etc... for 1st week, then drop it for after 7days, then go for blood work 7days after that.  But she said i shouldn’t ever ever ever go lower than 0.5mg /day. 

My question is to all of you adult SWCAH women on decadron.  How much is your dosage? Are any of you as low as 0.5mg ?

Seems like i can’t find anyone who’s ever gone through what i’ve been going through the past couple of years.  My Drs can’t really understand it either, my testosterone dropped from >1 to >0.5 in 1month.  The only thing i’ve been doing different is daily REIKI energy treatments, and meditation. But my Drs refuse to believe it could be a small miracle :-)

All i know is that i feel stronger and have more stamina and higher potassium levels the less steroids i take!

thank you for reading this

Caroline
http://www.geocities.com/carolines_corner