-Hello Alan in Denver your letter sounded so familiar :) and no one
knows unless they KNOW...we still function and no one guesses until
we are ill or notice our tan never goes away...keep up with your
vitamins and the most important thing is to laugh every day if it
hurts even kep in touch and take care :) -- In
addisonsdisease@y..., "adkprofile" <adk20022002@y...> wrote:
> Hello everyone,
>
> My name is Alan and I'm a 49 year old married male from a southwest
> suburb of Denver, Colorado. I was diagnosed with Addisons the
first
> part of Nov, 2001 after I had an extreme Addisons crisis episode.
> They think I have had adrenal insufficency most of my life, but it
> came to a head last October and November. For a long time, when I
> would get stressed or sick with a virus I would be sicker than what
> I should have been and it always turned into an infection or
> something else. Like a mini crisis. In the spring of 2001, I had
> extreme stress due to problems with two of my sons. (drugs got them
> and dropping out of school, running away, assaulted and stole from
> us, and several other things. The first of May I had a nervous
> breakdown, chest pains, real high blood pressure and many other
> things that got me in the hospital for 7 days. During treatment
> they had to treat my with a high dose of cortisone so they could
> give me a iodine test since I am allergic to Iodine and they needed
> to reduce my reaction. Well all of a sudden I got better and I was
> discharged with a diagnosis of stress related syndrome with
> depression and anxiety. Come to find out, they unknowingly treated
> my addisons with the cortisone. I got put on paxil for my
> depression and anxiety. After getting out of the hospital I started
> to have all kinds of symptoms. Vomiting, Diarhea, loss of hair,
> darking of the skin (which I've had several years), loss of weight,
> weakness, shaking, muscle pain, almost every syptoms of addisons
> they list. I lost 55 lbs in 2 1/2 months. They found that my
> thyroid level was way down so they started to treat me for
> hypothyroidism. I still got worse and worse and the low blood
> pressure and dehydration and low sodium started to be a constant
> problem. I can't remember too much of anything that happened after
> the 9-11 Trade Towers attack. They say that the stress from seeing
> that and reacting like most Americans, and going on high alert at
my
> job(I'm a Police Detective in Denver) it was the last straw
(stress)
> my body could take. Everything is kind of a blur for a couple of
> months. Two days before I went into crisis in first part of
> November, the doctor give me 4 bags of saline solution and I was
> still dehydrated. I went home but couldn't do anything but
> literally had to crawl to bed. That night the doctor called and he
> said he researched my condition and said he believed I had
addisons.
> He wanted to see me the next day. I went in, he did an injection
> test and in an hour I passed out on them and off to the hospital by
> ambulance I went. I got to the hospital and my body was shutting
> down. They said I had about an hour or two and it would have been
> too late to save me. That put a real different perspective on
> life. Since then it's been up and down for me. I have developed
> fibromyalgia that is very painful and sometimes it's hard to walk
or
> move around. This addisons disease has changed my life quite a
> bit. I am tired all the time, I can not do the simplest thing in
> life without wearing out and sweating. Sweating. That's all I do.
> If I do anything stressful or just go shopping or do some things
> around the house, I sweat and need to sit or lay down to recover.
I
> run out of breath. I have shakes and my muscles twitch all over
> especially when I am laying down or resting. At times my mind does
> not work as sharp or as good as it use to and I do get confused at
> times. They say you can lead a normal life. Well I don't think I
> can but I am trying to do as good as I can. I'm learning to live
> with this disease and I think only people with it can understand
> what it is like. I hope I did not bore everyone with this story.
> It does help sometimes to be able to tell someone about what
> happened to and is going on with me. I would like to hear some of
> your stories if you want to share them. I'm glad and privileged to
> be part of this group. Keep in touch.
> Your Friend from Denver, Alan