This is Part 2 of the Those of Us Who Take Adrenal Support

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This is additional information re to the above subject being discussed on another thyroid group concerning adrenal support. I am just trying to get other opinions on this subject. F. I would like to explain a little more my previous post with thise-mail I sent to someone else:Dr. Wiliam Jeffries wrote a book called "The Safe Uses of Cortisol" Hewas one of the first researchers on cortisone therapy. From about the1940s up untill just recetly, it was thought that the healthy adultadrenal gland made about 40 mg of cortisone a day. New studiesindicate that this is too high and that the healthy adrenals reallymake between 20 and 35 mg a day. This number is for a person basicallyat rest or not

doing very much. Cortisone output will double ortripple or more for excercise, stress or some type of crisis. Thehealthy adrenals have extra hormones stored for this sort ofsituation. How much is not really known, but one medical book I readestimated about 3 weeks worth extra. So, you go about your day and ifyou have a normal day and don't excercise or have your boss come upbehind you and watch what you are doing, you will probably usesomewhere between 20 mg and 35 mg that day.But, if you go out and excercise for an hour vigorously, it ispossible to need another 60 mg of cortisone for this activity.Cortisone is very important for helping thyroid make energy and forthe body to get glucose to make energy. If you are injured in a wreckor something, you might need well over 100 mg of cortisone a day.The number of 20 mg adrenal support is what Jeffries promoted in hisold book as a pretty safe dose. He chose this dose because

he thoughtit was 1/2 of daily production or 1/2 of 40mg. This would then leaveyou 1/2 of your own adrenal production providing the rest of yourdaily needs or the other 20 mg to get you to 40 mg total, and so itwould not totally shut down your own adrenals and pituitary and getyou into the myriad of troubles people get into on high dose cortisonetherapy. Whenever you do the work of your own adrenals by takingcortisone, your adrenals get lazy and weaker.But, if daily production for the average person is really 20 mg to 35mg, as the new studies say, and not 40 as Jeffries thought, then 1/2of that would be 10 mg up to 17-1/2 mg a day and you should not exceedthis number if you use the latest research. (Jeffries has a new bookout on this and I do not know what dose he recommends in that.)In Jeffries old book, he has a chart showing the level of suppressionand weakening of a healthy person's adrenal glands on various doses

ofcortisone up to 20 mg a day. At 20 mg the suppression of a person'sadrenals is about 60%. That means a healthy person's adrenals can onlymake 40% of what is needed for a day after he/she has been oncortisone for 3 weeks. But, this is based on the higher 40 mg totaladrenal output. So, if you really make only 25 mg a day, then taking20 mg of cortisone will significantly shut down your own adrenals. 20mg out of 25 total is 80% of your needs you are supplying by pills,not 1/2 of your daily needs.OK. lets suppose a healthy person stores an extra 100mg of cortisonefor stress and suppose their adrenals are large and healthy and canproduce 10 mg of cortisone an hour if it were needed. Then suppose theperson normally makes 30 mg a day. This person goes on a 1 hour jog inthe heat and uses 60 mg to do this jog. He gets 50 mg from his adrenalstorage and another 10 from his gland to do this jog.Now, suppose you give this

person 15 mg of of cortisone a day for 3weeks. By the end of three weeks, their adrenal glands will haveshrunk by half in size ( they are like a muscle and become small whennot fully used) and so this person's gland now can only make 5 mg anhour and have only 50 mg stored hormone. Then suppose they go out andjog for an hour in the heat and they need 60 mg for this. Well, beforethe hour is up, they have totally depleted their adrenal glands of alltheir stored hormone. And, on top of that their gland could only make5 mg an hour. So, total, they were only able to produce 55 mg whenthey needed 60 and they have depeleted their adrenals of all cortisolfor the next hour or untill they can make more. They do not haveenough cortisol for their activity and blood levels run low. Cortisolcontrols inflammation and it helps the body make glucose for musclesand cells to use for energy. When cortisol goes low, then the tissuesin the body

become damaged and the person ends up feeling prettyawful. They might get a mild heat stroke. This situation in itselfcauses you to need extra cortisone to repair it all.Anyway, my point is that the higher you go on your daily cortisonedose, the less stress toleranceyou will have and you may not haveenough adrenal production for those situations that exceed youradrenal capacity, which can be significantly reduced by cortisonetherapy. Now, consider the person with adrenal fatigue. Suppose their glandsare small from long time hypothyroidism and not enough stimulationfrom thyroid and they can only make maybe 70% of their daily needs.70% of 25mg total that they need for a calm day is 17.5mg that theycan make. Then that means they need another 7.5 mg to be normal or toprovide the other 30%. Also, because their glands are weak, theirpituitary has been working overitme and putting out extra ACTH to getthe adrenals to work

harder and make the extra 7.5 mg that is needed.So, the person takes IsoCort and just takes 7.5 mg a day. They do notsuppress or weaken their adrenals any further. But, they do suppressand weaken their pituitary production of ACTH by about 30%, sincegetting levels up to normal makes the pituitary not have to tell theadrenals as often to make more cortisol.In too long of a story here, my point is that if you don't want toweaken your adrenal glands further, you must take the minimum amountyou can get by with. As for your pituitary, any cortisone you takewill weaken it some. People who are put on huge doses of cortisone forinflamatory diseases that are so high that they shut down theirpituiatary glands can get secondary 's. In other words, thepituiary does not want to go back to work after the person tries toget off the cortisone. So, there is always the danger of permanentpituitary suppression on large doses of

cortisone. Cortisone therapyhas problems. It cannot replicate normal human function and pills donot provide the capacity to respond quickly and perfectly to subtle orlarge changes in the body's needs for cortisone.The best way to avoid the most problems is to keep your daily dose tothe minimum and if you have a stress that is more than your adrenalscan handle,then dose with IsoCort short-term just for that stress.Like for instance: If you go on a hike, then take 1 to 3 or whateveryou need IsoCorts just for that activity. Take one before you startand then pay attention to how you are feeling while you are hiking andif you get hypoglycemia or start to feel bad, take another IsoCort.The trick here is to just give yourself what you need for thatactivity. It is a very difficult thing to do and takes time andexperience. If you go to an 's newsgroup, you will find thatthey struggle with this problem of figuring out how much

then need forvarious activities every day.If you want to learn the most about the adrenals, you really need togo to a library at a university that has either a medical school or aveterinary school and check out every medical book on the adrenalglands that you can and slog through them. You can also try to findjournal articles or whatever is more recently written.

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