My EC may be caused by adrenal hormones and dehydration

Hi all,

I've been suffering from EC for a little over 1 year now. I have a lot of things to say and this will be treated as my personal journal and findings for MY particular case. Hopefully it may spark good discussion or give you a different perspective on your own case of EC. This may be of interest to the people out there who experience skin problems due to Accutane.

My current theory is that my EC is a really bad case of chapped lips due to dehydration. My lips are sticky (dry - dehydration), I get white film on the inner side of my lips in the morning (I believe this is just skin cells), and they peel constantly (the typical 2-3 day cycle, the skin IS rapidly generating and healing, but the dryness just is not allowing a proper heal). They also get very red (not swollen) when I eat or drink anything (when peeled). This is not an allergic response, but inflammation due to the lips being wounded and extremely chapped. Lips have a lot of blood flow capability and get really red when inflamed.

Around the time of me getting EC, I also started experiencing other symptoms: Bloodshot eyes that burned and my vision was a little bit blurred. My heart pulse was VERY visible in my neck, especially when laying down. Upon standing after laying or sitting, I would get lightheaded easily and sometimes almost pass out. I have been experiencing fatigue, and muscle/strength loss in the gym. My sweat appears to taste more salty than normal. Also, the skin above and below my lips are dry/peeling, as well as some dry skin under my eyebrows. Low libido. Depression. Sleep disturbances. Heart palpitations.

So, what happened in my life around the time of me experiencing all of these things? Any lifestyle changes? Any medications? Any illness?

1. Very hard gym training and trying to lose fat (bodybuilding). I used high amounts of caffeine as well as ephedrine.
2. Went to Las Vegas, met a lady. Did she give me any illness? Possibly, but doctors say I'm clean.
3. Some lip irritation started to occur. Doctors gave me topical steroids as well as Prednisone (oral corticosteroid) as they believed it was allergy related (I never had allergy problems in my life so I am unsure).

The majority of the symptoms came after taking Prednisone. However, the gym training and low calorie diet I was on probably wasn't helping either. Add on a strong stimulant combination of caffeine and ephedrine and you have a great situation for TONS of physiological stress and stress hormone output. I have been off Prednisone for over a year and I stopped taking strong stimulants... yet I'm not improving. One thing I JUST noticed that I haven't addressed: Food intake and training. I'm still not eating enough food and still lifting heavy weights. Not eating enough is inherently stressful. It results in your adrenals pushing out stress hormones. Training hard is stressful as well. So what does high amounts of stress have to do with my hydration and sodium status?

Aldosterone is a hormone produced in the adrenal gland. This hormone determines whether you hold or excrete sodium. If my adrenals are busy producing high amounts of stress hormone (such as cortisol), I think this can have an impact on Aldosterone production (low aldosteorne levels = hypoaldosteronism). I also may have adrenal insufficiency and I may just not be producing enough of any hormone. Hmm possible. Anyway. When aldosterone is high, the body holds on to sodium. Conversely, when aldosterone is low, the body excretes sodium. This would explain the extremely salty sweat (high excretion). Sodium is needed by the body to hold on to water. So, low sodium = low water = dehydration. No matter how much salt I eat or how much water I drink, it gets rapidly excreted due to low aldosterone. This may also explain why alcohol seems to make things worse (alcohol is a diuretic).

My current plan of attack is to avoid stimulants, increase my food intake (track calories to ensure consistency), relax on the weight lifting for a little bit and just REST and relax to give my adrenals a break. It may take a while for my skin to fully heal, but my other symptoms are easily measurable so I can look to those for progress.

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