Need Advice regarding HC...

Hello everyone,

So as a total LAST resort I started to take Hydrocortisone back in February of 2013. This was when Lam's protocol for 5 months made me crash BIG TIME, and all other natural herbs weren't doing anything for me. I couldn't even gather the energy to walk around my house for MONTHS, so I just HAD TO do something. Well anyways, I really didn't notice any real difference when starting the HC since I had other physical issues at the time...so I kept taking it....20 mg - 10 mg in the morning, 5mg 4 hours afterwards and 5 mg four hours after that. I decided I would keep up with it until I would get all my external and physical stresses taken care of. Well it turns out that it took me a while to deal with those, so I kept postponing my weaning time, and now I've basically been on it for 9 months. I even heard that 20 mg is too low a dose from other forums and ppl since I am a 23 year old male, so I increased the dose to 30 mg a day for about 3 weeks back in July. Honestly it made me much worse and stressed. I got my testesterone checked and it was on the very low end of the range. I attributed that to the HC increase. So I went back down to 20 mg. I really feel that the initial morning dose helps me going, but the afternoon and evening doses kinda give me this tension feeling....like maybe I'm stressing myself out with the HC instead of supporting my adrenals. Well for over a week now I've reduced the last HC dose by half to 2.5 mg...and I guess I feel a little better...with less tension.

I was wondering if it would be wise to cut off the evening dose all together. I take it at around 5 - 6 p.m. I go to sleep around 11 - 12 p.m. Would my body become confused? I heard that anything below 20 mg is already going below physiological dose, and it can hurt you instead of helping. My plan is to start fully weaning in 1 - 2 months anyways. I have this really stressful 5 hour dental admission exam coming up in 3 weeks and am doing my best to prepare for it, but I am currently only able to do half the studying I need to. I don't feel that the HC is the answer to my problems....and at this point I think it might be doing more harm than good. Is it safe to temporarily take 10 mg in the morning and 5 mg in the afternoon and totally discount the evening dose...for a total of 15 mg? Just for a month or so until I can start weaning down fully...

During this whole process I just realized that cortisol isn't the whole picture with severe adrenal exhaustion. It very much so involves the nervous system as well, especially the autonomic nervous system. I feel that when I am able to finally give my body some resting time and elminate all sources of stress, maybe my stress signaling and nervous system can go back to where it should be.

I know a lot of people on this forum are totally against HC, but for anyone who has any experience with this topic, please give me some advice regarding the dose, as I really need it right now :)

Thanks and Much Love to anyone struggling 8=)