This needs to be said. I need you all to hear it.
By De Lena Dreasler.
It doesn’t matter if you’re having a very mild procedure like a filling, or if you are due for major abdominal surgery. If you’re tired from the PTA or you lost a loved one. Every time you have a procedure, accident, or illness, even if you don’t feel bad, even if it goes well, even if you don’t have it, can’t afford it, hate to do it, or think it’s silly, you still need to have extra steroids available. There is no other way around it.
There is this misconception in the AI community that steroids help is feel better or “normal” and that if you don’t have them you can just rest, drink some broth, and wait until your body recovers from whatever it is you needed extra cortisol for in the first place. This is frighteningly inaccurate.
Cortisol controls your whole body. All the inflammation markers in your body are under the influence of cortisol. Your lungs breathe, your heart pumps, your blood sugar stays high enough to keep you out of a coma, your blood pressure is stable, your electrolytes stay in balance to protect your kidneys from failure, your heart from infarction, your brain from hallucinations and seizing.
You do not have low energy if something serious happens after the procedure like an infection or God forbid an accident or mistake. You suffer from the chance of death. Even from something minor.
If you are on the way to the doctor’s office and a lady hits your car with hers in the parking lot and it scares you, you burn most of your cortisol for the day. Then you call the insurance and burn more. Your spouse yells at you and your son is late getting picked up. There’s the rest of that cortisol. Then you have the procedure. You already feel terrible. You go home and can’t get out of bed for some reason. Your spouse makes dinner. Now you don’t even have enough cortisol to get through the night, much less heal from your “simple” procedure. Your stomach is upset. Your head hurts. You drink a coke to help the headache. You get really sleepy. The next morning you can barely wake up. Your chest is pounding. You check your blood pressure and it’s low. Or high. Maybe it’s just different for you and not really something that concerning. You’re irritable and cranky. You can’t think straight. You can barely make your son breakfast and you don’t want any. Later that night you spike a fever. It’s way too high. 102.7
Your letter from the doctor’s office says to call the nurse. You call and give your history. She says call your endo. You don’t have an endo. You go to the ER even though it costs out the ass. The ER doc says it’s a virus but here’s an antibiotic just in case. You go to the pharmacy and you can’t walk. You get your meds that cost too much and take the first dose. Your infection you can’t fight, your trip to the ER, your antibiotics all used your daily dose of cortisol you took this morning. You see, your adrenals, had they been normal, would have made the equivalent of 200 mg hydrocortisone to deal with this terrible two days, but you only gave it 10 mg. Now your body is in debt. You are negative 70 cortisol and you need to be positive 200. You have a big problem. But you can’t think clearly about this because your brain doesn’t have what it needs. Or your lungs. Or your stomach. Or your heart. You ask for advice on your group and someone says eat soup and take a nap. You take their advice, even though others are text ‘screaming’ at you to go to the ER. But you already did that. You just need to sleep it off. You spend the next half hour in the bathroom with a pounding headache and the big D. You sip your soup then fall asleep. In the morning your son can’t wake you. Your spouse calls an ambulance and the paramedics rush you to the local hospital where they give an IV and a bright on-call endo gives you a steroid bolus. You come around and they bring you back. You were very lucky. Now you’re 29,000 dollars in the hole and your body has an infection somewhere, probably from your procedure, turning septic. Your husband misses work, your son cries every day you’re in the hospital, and you feel so terrible some days you secretly wish they hadn’t saved you. But at least you are not a butterfly on someone’s profile.
I tell you this not to scare you, but to warn you. This happens. We watch it every day in these groups. Most times people pull through because they are very lucky. Sometimes, hell, too often, they are not lucky. That stress dose before could have saved a lot of trouble, even a life.
I’m not a doctor. I can’t tell you what to do. But this is not a minor inconvenience, not a thorn in your side. Unfortunately this is a grave necessity. You NEED an endo. Probably even more than you need the procedure you need an endo to consult with about in the first place. You NEED extra steroids. Before. After. Just in case. In the event of _____. Not soup. Not broth. Not rest. Steroids. You don’t make them but you have to have them. Every day. Every stress. Every time.
I wish you the best. I want you to be safe. I need you to be OK. I trust you’ll do whatever you can to take care as best you can and I’m not shaming you, or telling you off, or insulting you. I’m begging with love and concern, as if you are my sister, my brother, my cousin, my best friend. Please find an endo. Please have those extra steroids available. For me. For us. For you.
I don’t want to risk losing you. You are my family and I love you. Hugs.