I was doing some errands and a couple more questions came to mind. I read Lisa V’s reply to the switching from cortef to prednisone thread.

"My daughter (11yrs, SWCAH) was on Dex for a long time, she gained so much weight and her appetite never decreased.

We switched her to Prednisone in April just before her 11th birthday.  Since then she has grown 1.75 inches, which is a lot for her in such a short time, her appetite has decreased and she craves things like crackers, water or fruit.  Before she would always crave sweets or junk food.  Plus she said that she feels more energetic and she has been going out with friends and riding her bike or scooter or playing sports.

So for us the switch was a good thing."

And raised a few concerns for me.  I’ve been on dex since 11 yrs old, i had never heard of hydrocortisone till 2 years ago.  I’ve always been severely obese as a child on cortisone. I always craved nasty high sugar junk foods, and salty fatty foods.  I was a bottomless pit.  Then at 11 yrs old, my bloodwork was finally normal on dex, so it was a victory (we were told). But now that i look back, I’ve always been extremely hungry.  I managed to lose 135lbs at 16yrs old, but i was going to be in tears from the hunger pains and the light headed feelings.  I’ve always had to use mind-over-matter, calorie reduction (1,200/day) and intense meditation to achieve my weight loss goals. When i saw others lose weight just from switching to healthy food choices!

So bottom line here is.... at 29yrs old, 18 yrs on dex. I’m suffering still from the same hunger, weight gain, etc... as Lisa V’s daughter was and i was since a child.  I never knew it was because of dex.

Question: Do you believe switching over to hydro will "fix" those symptoms and help me manage my weight healthily once and for all?

Question: If the ratio is 80:1 and i’m on 0.625 (which is think is too high, i should go down to 0.5mg, but no endo or family doc here in Regina Canada wants me to). How is best route to go about it? Find the right dex dose 1st, then convert it 80:1 to hydro (0.625mg = 50mg ) stay on 50mg for like what 1 week? 2 weeks? then decrease a little (5mg at a time?) then stay on that for how long 1 week? 2 weeks? and keep decreasing some more? Until down to 25-30mg then?

See I’m asking all of this because i know i will not find the medical knowledge here in this small western canada city.  There is no one who knows enough about this here, there’s only 900,000 people in the whole province! not much technology in medicine here compared to eastern canada where i come from originally.  So i know if i want to switch or stay of dex and be on the optimal best dosage of it, either way.  I will have to be left to do it all by my itty bitty self and i don’t want to die in the process LOL. Nah, I know i won’t die anytime soon, So i’ve been told by a palm reader *wink*... can you believe she told me i’d probably end up out living most people!

Anyhoo, i wish i could hug you right now Carol :-)  I truly appreciate that you’ve been taking the time to share your knowledge of this to assist me in my journey towards gaining optimal health.  It’s funny, you know? All these so called "problems" with too high of dex dosage etc... have only begun since doing intense Reiki energy healing treatments on my adrenal chakra. and since being attuned to healing energy too.  I know this sounds un-realistic to think, but i think my adrenal glands have been "changing/healing" for the better the past 2 years. My endo and GP laughed at me when i told them that.  Saying they’ll never work properly so stop trying to do visualizations and energy healings on them, etc... nice eh?

C