We can all experience adrenal crisis a little differently

By Desley Rolph.

I give two examples of my personal experience and symptoms before diagnosis. 

About a month before an adrenal crisis that saw me admitted to hospital and then diagnosed with adrenal insufficiency, I had a near episode that looking back now, if I had gone to the emergency department I most likely would have been diagnosed earlier.  

What happened that day:  This was a day that was extremely hot and humid and I met a girlfriend for lunch in an outdoor area.  I had been feeling very unwell for about 4 months, not knowing that I was suffering from Secondary Adrenal Insufficiency (SAI). This day saw me sweating profusely, and it escalated to the point where I began to feel sick, light headed, extremely weak, with heart racing, diarrhoea and abdominal pain.  I had to excuse myself and head home, which thankfully was only 5 minutes away.  I don’t know how I managed to drive home, but I did, stumbled up the stairs, turned on the air conditioning, poured a large cold drink and fell onto the sofa with the fan on me. It took a few hours, but I eventually started to feel better, the abdominal pain and diarrhoea easing.  I got through it not knowing what it was all about, and I just blamed getting dehydrated with the heat.  

A month later:  After having a colonoscopy to determine the cause of my diarrhoea and low ferritin, 24 hours later I woke feeling extremely dizzy, shaking, nauseated, so weak I could hardly walk, and had bad tachycardia. I called my husband from work who took me to the GP, and while sitting in the waiting room I developed extremely severe abdominal pain. She sent me to the emergency department at a nearby hospital, where I was admitted and diagnosed with SAI.