Hydrocortisone Dosing, Withdrawal & drug half-life Re: Lost Some Weight

HC *commonly* causes a lack of appetite. You've upped your dosage and now you're saying you're not hungry.

That is the effect of the drug.  In a situation like this, you should eat even if you are not hungry, or you will continue to experience more weight loss.  This has virtually nothing to do with whether or not you 'eat meat'.  In fact, check out this recent snippet from ray34iyf (from here: http://curezone.com/forums/fm.asp?i=1777878#i )

And I have noticed digestion improvements! I have lost body fat and gained a bit of muscle. I no longer feel really skinny like I did before. I have some good strength in my body now. I don't know my weight at the moment, but I would feel I gained some and a bit of that muscle....

Even though he's in the middle of strong cleansing and detoxing from SSRI's & Accutane, he's sticking with the food program and it's working wonderfully in the weight/muscle department!

This basic program worked for the patients of Gerson, Christopher & Schulze (that's at least tens of thousands over the years).  The variable is not the minor differences in each human body; the variables are 1) how much of the protocol is utilized and how consistently it is applied; and 2)and what kind of pharmaceutical/supplement chemicals are forcing the body into actions that have absolutely nothing to do with the effects of herbs or the protocol itself.

********

If I'm understanding your post correctly (combined with your history)...

You were taking 20-25 mg of HC daily when posting here, then cut to 5mg in around 30 days.  You went back up to 35 mgs, and are planning on dropping back to 10 mg. >>>It only takes a few days of stress dosing to get things back to normal, and then I plan to go to 10 mg  <<<


The drastic dosage changes you are making, with a substance as volatile and health/adrenal destroying as HC, is extremely dangerous & carries strong potential for harm - 'cutting & upping doses' at these extremes is like slamming a hammer into your adrenal glands & body (not to emtion the adverse effects on your emotions and ability to think/logic).  And the majority of symptoms you're reporting *are* directly correlated to your extreme dosage changes.

You've reported & exhibited virtually every withdrawal symptom 'in the book' in your posts (both physical & mental), with every dose cut you've made...but you've rarely attributed the symptoms to the HC, and commonly attributed the symptoms to various herbs.  Yet as I understand it, you've never taken the herbs before, and you've never withdrawn from HC before, so you actually have no way of really knowing 'what is causing what'.

Joe, it's 100% true - you know your body far better than I, or anyone else ever could.  It's also 100% true that I have assisted a lot of people to withdraw off of HC while using the same herbs you are using.  The symptoms  you are attributing to the herbs are things I've never seen happen to any other body; yet the things you are reporting are things I've seen consistently with those withdrawing from HC.

One of the most important things I can ever do is to help people learn & understand what is happening in their body so that they do not harm themselves and make themselves sicker.

From what you have written in your posts and your plans to drop down to 10mg of HC (after going from 5 to 35mg to 'stress dose'), it is very clear to me that you are underestimating the immense strength this drug has on your body, and the very serious harm it does when you withdraw too quickly, or alter your doses at such phenomenal extremes...or you are getting very bad advise from your prescriber.

I mentioned previously that when someone cuts too rapidly, because of the damage it causes to the adrenals, one has to 'start over' on the withdrawal process from a higher dose than where they were when they'd started.

It's my advice that you go back up to at least 20mg, but if it were me, I'd go back to 25mg.  Because if you take less than you need, it causes more harm/damage to your adrenals...and then you'll have to start all over again, again...but go up to even a higher dose yet.

The physiological  truth is, that now that you've 'roller-coastered' the dosages so drastically, you really have no idea how much a 'stabilizing dose' really is (especially when you factor in the half-life).  One option that might be best at this point is to go back to your original dose...and stick there for at least two weeks.  If stable, then start cutting at 10% every week or two...if not stable (very possible due to the damage your adrenals have suffered from the rapid withdrawal), then add 5mg weekly until you are stable.

Here's an example of something about withdrawing from pharmaceuticals that you may not understand completely enough to be able to correctly interpret your symptoms....the issue of half-life.

The half-life of hydrocortisone is commonly reported to be 8-12 hours (half-life is basically the amount of time it takes for the blood level of the drug to become 'half').  Remember, almost always,  long before the drug has gone to half, the effects we can actually sense/feel are gone.  But even then, the drug is only at 'half"...and it takes another 8-12 hours for that half to become one-quarter, and so on.   In someone that has liver or kidney compromise, it can take the liver up to twice as long to 'clear the drug'  to half.  Since you have known/serious liver compromise, for this example I'm going to use 24 hours/one day as the 'half life' (24 hours is probably a bit high, but it's much easier for me to 'do the math' this way :)

Day one - 20 mg of HC

Day two - 20 mg of HC (plus 10mg from Day 1)

Day three - 20 mg of HC (plus 5 mg from Day 1 and 10 mg from Day 2)

Day four - 20 mg of HC (plus 2.5 mg from Day 1; 5mg from Day 2 and 10 mg from Day 3)

Day five - 20 mg of HC (Day 1 is cleared; 2.5  mg from Day 2; 5 mg from Day 3 and 10 mg from Day 4)...for around 35 mg of HC in the blood daily.

Once you've been dosing for around 2 weeks, the plasma level of the HC will be relatively stable...because all these 'half lifes' will level out to a plasma level that basically stays the same.  In this example, you'd have around 35 mgs in your bloodstream daily with a 20 mg daily dose.

When you 'play this backward' you will clearly see that dose cuts you make on Day 1 might not even be significantly felt until after the blood level normalizes to a lower dose...and with HC that can take at least 5 days.  So you don't actually 'get hit' with the full effects of the 5mg cut until at least 5 days after you cut the dose!  That means you'll be confident to cut another 5mgs very quickly...but you might not be sensing the effects of the first dose when you make the second cut, and you won't be able to feel the full effects of both cuts together for yet another week (maybe two...depending on your liver).  So after a couple of 5 mgs cuts, 10-12 days later you are  feeling and experiencing the symptoms of withdrawal.

But how is any logical person (especially one that has just started using herbs) going to believe the symptoms they are having on Day 10 or Day 14 of the withdrawal,  have anything to do with the HC they cut 10-14 days ago?  They can't!  So of course, they believe that the herbs they took that day are what is causing their symptoms.  :(

So you see, after a few days of  "stress dosing" at 35 mgs, your plasma level will be somewhere over 50mg....then if you cut to 10mg, you won't "feel" the full effect of the drastic cut for several days (maybe even a week or more!).  So if on the day/s that your plasma level drops significantly (5-7 days AFTER you've made the cut in dose), you decide to 'up your cayenne' or 'start the IF#1 again", you will logically assume that the symptoms of HC withdrawal are symptoms from the cayenne or IF#1.

Below information is taken from eHealthMe, a site that compiles ACTUAL adverse-effects made to the FDA.  The FDA says that about 1 in a 100 adverse effects are reported, so you can multiply these numbers by one hundred.  This study is for HC...and does not include "withdrawal effects".

Things that you've reported while taking HC that are on this list...when you multiply the reports by 100, you'll see that 1500 - 6450 people have experienced each symptom listed while being on HC.

So all of these things that you are currently experiencing while you are on HC may have absolutely nothing to do with anything you are eating, doing or herbs you are taking.  Whenever anyone is experiencing a "symptom", the very first thing anyone should consider is the drugs they are on...whether they recently increased or decreased your dosage or not. 

But if you have increased or decreased the dosage, it's even MORE likely what you're experiencing is due to the HC.

One more quick thing, check this out: And here,http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3614334 if you do a Google search on HC + magnesium, the very first hit is a 'rat study' that conclusively shows that HC interferes with magnesium processing and lowers magnesium levels in rats...and there's pages of other hits on how it negatively effects magnesium in humans.

So how many times have you attributed diarrhea (a known side-effect AND withdrawal effect from HC) and the magnesium loss you sense (also a known effect of the HC), to IF#1 and/or cayenne (that are not known effects unless taking way too much or upping the dosage radically)?  Likely almost always.  When HC lessens magnesium levels AND causes diarrhea, there's no way anyone would  be able to know 'what is doing what'...especially if their experence and knowledge is limited.  Only someone that has seen the effects of the herbs in hundreds of people and knows all the effects of HC withdrawal  is going to know for sure what the herbs are doing or not doing.

Once again (for everyone), "listening to our doctor within" is NOT as simple as looking at  symptoms & responses.  We MUST have the knowledge of our body's language AND the knowledge of  the adverse effects of the drugs & supplements we're taking...without both, there's just no way to clearly know what our doctor within is really saying.

Blessings,

Unyquity

 Typical symptoms

Low blood pressure

Nausea

Weakness

Fatigue

Anxiety

Malaise

Depression

Tachychardia

Weight Decreased

Anorexia

Constipation

On Mar, 1, 2011: 11,506 people who reported to have side effects when taking Hydrocortisone are studied

Top 100 overall Hydrocortisone side effects:

	Name	How frequent is it: Number of people (% of total people)
1	Pyrexia (Fever) (learn more )	808 (7.02%)
2	Dyspnoea (Breathing difficulty) (learn more )	694 (6.03%)
3	Dyspnoea Nos (Breathing difficulty) (learn more )	683 (5.94%)
4	Vomiting Nos (Nausea and vomiting) (learn more )	674 (5.86%)
5	Vomiting (Nausea and vomiting) (learn more )	674 (5.86%)
6	Hypotension (learn more )	645 (5.61%)
7	Blood Pressure Decreased (Hypotension) (learn more )	619 (5.38%)
8	Nausea (learn more )	600 (5.21%)
9	Asthenia (Weakness) (learn more )	551 (4.79%)
10	Fatigue (learn more )	544 (4.73%)
11	Diarrhoea (Diarrhea) (learn more )	523 (4.55%)
12	Diarrhoea Nos (Diarrhea) (learn more )	515 (4.48%)
13	Erythema (Rashes) (learn more )	500 (4.35%)
14	Rash (Rashes) (learn more )	495 (4.30%)
15	Pneumonia (learn more )	476 (4.14%)
16	Hypertension (High blood pressure) (learn more )	453 (3.94%)
17	Pain (learn more )	435 (3.78%)
18	Pain Nos (learn more )	431 (3.75%)
19	Condition Aggravated (learn more )	395 (3.43%)
20	Headache Nos (learn more )	382 (3.32%)
21	Headache (learn more )	381 (3.31%)
22	Sepsis Nos (learn more )	380 (3.30%)
23	Sepsis (learn more )	380 (3.30%)
24	Anaemia (learn more )	372 (3.23%)
25	Blood Pressure Increased (High blood pressure) (learn more )	363 (3.15%)
26	Chest Pain (learn more )	349 (3.03%)
27	Abdominal Pain (learn more )	337 (2.93%)
28	Anxiety (Stress and anxiety) (learn more )	336 (2.92%)
29	Dehydration (learn more )	318 (2.76%)
30	Renal Failure Acute (learn more )	310 (2.69%)
31	Neutropenia (Agranulocytosis) (learn more )	304 (2.64%)
32	Drug Ineffective (learn more )	299 (2.60%)
33	Renal Failure (Acute kidney failure) (learn more )	291 (2.53%)
34	Dizziness (learn more )	289 (2.51%)
35	Malaise (learn more )	282 (2.45%)
36	Depression (learn more )	258 (2.24%)
37	Thrombocytopenia (learn more )	253 (2.20%)
38	Tachycardia (learn more )	242 (2.10%)
39	Fall (learn more )	240 (2.09%)
40	Haemoglobin Decreased (learn more )	238 (2.07%)
41	Arthralgia (Joint pain) (learn more )	238 (2.07%)
42	Death (learn more )	235 (2.04%)
43	Pruritus (Itching) (learn more )	231 (2.01%)
44	Cardiac Arrest (learn more )	226 (1.96%)
45	Cough (learn more )	226 (1.96%)
46	Loss Of Consciousness (learn more )	224 (1.95%)
47	Oedema Peripheral (learn more )	222 (1.93%)
48	Chills (learn more )	220 (1.91%)
49	Multi-organ Failure (learn more )	218 (1.89%)
50	Back Pain (learn more )	217 (1.89%)
51	Platelet Count Decreased (Thrombocytopenia ) (learn more )	210 (1.83%)
52	Pleural Effusion (learn more )	205 (1.78%)
53	Weight Decreased (learn more )	202 (1.76%)
54	Pain In Extremity (learn more )	202 (1.76%)
55	Hyponatraemia (learn more )	200 (1.74%)
56	Osteonecrosis (learn more )	200 (1.74%)
57	Respiratory Failure (Respiratory acidosis) (learn more )	196 (1.70%)
58	Infusion Related Reaction (learn more )	196 (1.70%)
59	Confusional State (learn more )	190 (1.65%)
60	Drug Interaction (learn more )	190 (1.65%)
61	Pancytopenia (learn more )	188 (1.63%)
62	Drug Toxicity (learn more )	183 (1.59%)
63	Constipation (learn more )	183 (1.59%)
64	Convulsion (learn more )	182 (1.58%)
65	Tremor (learn more )	176 (1.53%)
66	Septic Shock (learn more )	171 (1.49%)
67	Somnolence (Drowsiness) (learn more )	170 (1.48%)
68	Alanine Aminotransferase Increased (learn more )	170 (1.48%)
69	Weight Increased (learn more )	168 (1.46%)
70	Adrenal Insufficiency (learn more )	167 (1.45%)
71	Infection (learn more )	163 (1.42%)
72	Cardiac Failure Congestive (learn more )	163 (1.42%)
73	Blood Creatinine Increased (learn more )	163 (1.42%)
74	Atrial Fibrillation (Atrial fibrillation/flutter) (learn more )	162 (1.41%)
75	General Physical Health Deterioration (learn more )	162 (1.41%)
76	Aspartate Aminotransferase Increased (learn more )	161 (1.40%)
77	Hypersensitivity (learn more )	157 (1.36%)
78	Hypokalaemia (Hypokalemia) (learn more )	156 (1.36%)
79	Anorexia (learn more )	155 (1.35%)
80	Hyperkalaemia (Hyperkalemia) (learn more )	154 (1.34%)
81	Myocardial Infarction (Heart attack) (learn more )	152 (1.32%)
82	Pulmonary Embolism (learn more )	152 (1.32%)
83	Myalgia (Muscle aches) (learn more )	148 (1.29%)
84	Febrile Neutropenia (learn more )	147 (1.28%)
85	Craniopharyngioma (learn more )	139 (1.21%)
86	Cardio-respiratory Arrest (learn more )	136 (1.18%)
87	Oxygen Saturation Decreased (learn more )	134 (1.16%)
88	Depressed Level Of Consciousness (learn more )	131 (1.14%)
89	Syncope (Fainting) (learn more )	128 (1.11%)
90	Cellulitis (learn more )	124 (1.08%)
91	International Normalised Ratio Increased (learn more )	122 (1.06%)
92	Hepatic Failure (learn more )	122 (1.06%)
93	Blood Bilirubin Increased (learn more )	122 (1.06%)
94	Respiratory Distress (learn more )	118 (1.03%)
95	Heart Rate Increased (learn more )	115 (1.00%)
96	Dysphagia (Swallowing difficulty) (learn more )	115 (1.00%)
97	White Blood Cell Count Decreased (learn more )	114 (0.99%)
98	Ascites (learn more )	114 (0.99%)
99	White Blood Cell Count Increased (learn more )	114 (0.99%)
100	Drug Exposure During Pregnancy (learn more )	114

From past posts to you, these are other withdrawal/usage effects:

• Weakness
• Fatigue
• Decreased appetite
• Nausea
• Vomiting
• Diarrhea
• Rapid heart rate
• Dizziness
• Fainting
• Low blood pressure