Thank you for all the wonderful information

late last night after writing my post, i ended up going into a strange frenzy. I just felt like i was going to panic, i was tembly, i was light headed.  I couldn’t focus, my heart was beating hard.  It was horrible, like when i went into adrenal crisis during my gallbladder attack last year.  My spouse ordered me to take some decadron immediately eventhough i had taken 15mg od hydro 1hr ago.  I took 0.5mg of dex and felt better within 30mins, i was calm, relaxed, good humoured and dozed off to sleep around 1am (when the ordeal ended).   Woke up in a panic at around 4:30am though, hear beating hard, blood sugar dropping, hungry.  Ate a banana and piece of bread, was able to fall back asleep.  Woke up at 9am this morning, Took my 1/4 tablet of decadron.  Now my head feels heavy a bit, kind of sluggish and lethargic, and drowsy.  Same as when i’m given a bit too much steroids in emergency situations because they’re not sure what to do with me.  But feel less buzzy and panicky.  I’m sorry but i think i’m going to stay on decadron and work at tweaking that dosage instead of changing drugs altogether.  I have a year’s worth of hydro anyway, in case.

See the weird thing is that my blood work came back normal on all the hormones they’ve tested, but i remember 3 years ago when the endo i had then found that i was over steroided.  The 17-OH, and testosterone, and renin were all normal then too, but she went deeper and tested DHEA-S, TSH, T3 and potassium ... all were abnormal! So on the surface i "looked good" but i was on too high a dose.  She reduced it to 0.625mg, did bloodwork. All came back within normal range, she didn’t bother trying to go lower.  She told me i should never be under 0.5mg of dex ever.  So i’ve been afraid to go down to 0.5mg. But now my thyroid is back to having high TSH, low T3 and normal T4.  Everything i read says that’s a sign of too much cortisol in the blood.  Meaning too high dose of dex!

My TSH is 6.79 (0.67- 5 normal range), T4 15.3 (14- 19 nr), 17-OH 7.45 (1-13 nr), testosterone 1.45 (0.5-9), renin was normal too, but forgot the result.  For a while my testosterone levels were >0.5, lower than a normal woman’s!  They don’t want to test my T3 levels, saying it’s pointless etc....

That’s why i’m going to see a naturopath doctor, to get some more answers. The endos here are pretty crappy.  Mine just wants to throw me a synthroid pill to fix the thyroid problem.  Makes no sense to me if the problem is with the conversion of T4 to T3.  I won’t be able to convert the pill either and the underlying issue that’s affecting my ability to convert T4 to T3 will never be fixed. I thought being on hydro would fix the problem....right now i’ve decided i’m staying on decadron, i like it, makes me feel very calm and peaceful. :-)

c