Symptoms
of Cortisol Withdrawl:
Abdominal pain, Confusion
or coma, Darkening of the skin, Dehydration, Dizziness or light-headedness, Fatigue,
Flank pain, Headache, High fever,
Joint pain, Loss of appetite, Loss of consciousness, Low blood pressure, Nausea, Profound weakness,
Rapid heart rate, Rapid respiratory rate (see tachypnea), Shaking chills,
Skin rash
or lesions, Slow, sluggish movement, Unintentional weight loss, Unusual and excessive sweating on
face or palms, Vomiting
So I read a bunch of stuff
before my surgery about how the withdrawl of Coritsol from my body, both from
the adrenal removal and (hopefully) the cure of the Cushing's would be a long
road. There were all these side effects.
I'd be really sick, yadda yadda yadda
right? But the whole time I was
thinking...
"That won't be me."
"I'm never sick."
"I'm not THAT sick
right now so I'm sure it won't be that bad."
"Not nearly as bad as
all these horror stories you read online right???"
It's bad. It's almost every single one of the things
listed above. Yesterday something
happened that I don't think has ever happened in my adult life. I couldn't get out of the bed. I just laid there. For hours.
In the dark. I didn't even watch
tv. Finally mid-afternoon I moved to the
couch. Now luckily this adrenal
"crash" that I experienced pretty much from Friday through yesterday
I think was a direct result of them lowering the dose of my Hydrocortisone too
quickly on Thursday. So after a call to
the doctor yesterday morning and upping the dose I was taking I'm back to
feeling only "medium crappy" instead of like I was going to die. (By the
way I think I'm going to come up with a list of "how I feel" choices
to pick from when people call or write and ask how I am. Answers to chose from will include things
like "Well I didn't hurt anyone today" and "I only felt like I
was going to puke for 4 hours today, not all day.")
I don't say all this stuff
for anyone to feel bad for me or anything but mostly for people who are
Googling like I was and stumble upon this to see what it's really like. It's odd too, the physical stuff is pretty
bad but I will admit the mental stuff is a little scary. I'm sort of in this daze. Hard to focus, hard to get things
accomplished, don't feel like talking out loud. All of these things are so 180% away from my
normal personality. I think that was
part of the whole staying in bed thing yesterday, not only did I feel horrible
but I just sort of wanted to stay under the covers and make it all go away?
Wow-that was all kind of
heavy and stuff-sorry about that...good news is I'm at work this morning. Time to catch up on some things. Apparently the people waiting to be paid
don't really care about all the stuff mentioned above? Go figure?
Bills are still due, payroll needs to be done, the mail piles up.
Looks like this is going to
be a one day at a time kind of thing.
LVP told me yesterday I wasn't Wonder Woman. I was a little insulted...of course I
am? But maybe just not right now...
Back to work...
BIG HUGS Janet, keep your chin up and this too shall pass. But boy, this sounds like it really sucks :( I am thinking about you and hoping it passes really quickly.
ReplyDeleteHey, wonder woman. Thanks for bein' real. Thinking of you.
ReplyDeleteSending you lots of love from NJ.
ReplyDelete