Blog changes

Thanks to everyone who followed Training Because I Can! over the last nine years. This blog started with Addison's Disease, hypothyroidism and a crazy idea of doing an Ironman distance triathlon. My life has changed and so has this blog. I am using this blog strictly for Addison's Support topics from here on out. I hope to continue providing people with hints for living life well with adrenal insufficiency.

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

MEDICATIONS

I've had lots of questions from Addisonian's about how I adjusted my meds for training and the race. I'm going to put my training & race protocol here (I'm cutting and pasting from emails if this looks redundant to anyone!).

Keep in mind, I am not a doctor. Consult your own doctor about increasing exercising or changing the way you take your medications. I actually DID talk to my doctor about my meds. Hard to believe but true.
I ALWAYS DIVIDE MY DOSES OF HC. 10 mg at 6 am, 10 mg at 11 am and 5 mg at 2-3 pm. This works best for me, it might not work best for you.
Pre-Training: 20 mg hydrocortisone (HC), 12.5 mg DHEA and .05 mcg Florinef (Summer) .025 mcg Florinef (Winter)
  • I determined that I needed more HC while training by listening to my body. When my workouts intensified and I felt consistently achy, exhausted and generally bad, I increased my HC to 25 mg. I would have increased to 22.5 but Westward HC is too difficult to split into eighths (thanks Westward! *insert sarcasm here*)
Training: 25 mg HC, 12.5 mg DHEA, .05 mcg Florinef
  • I only increased my HC if I had the symptoms above OR if I was exercising for longer than a couple of hours. I increased by about 5 mg for 2 extra hours of exercise. Often, I'd schedule my workouts with my meds so that I didn't need extra and I would split my doses further to cover my exercise. For example, I take 10 mg of HC at 11 am generally but during a longish workout I might take 5 mg of HC at 10 am, 5 mg of HC at 11:30 am and 5 mg at 1 pm and see how tired I was later in the day and THEN take more HC.
2 days prior to race: 30 mg HC, 18 mg DHEA, .1 Florinef, extra salt
Race day:
10 mg HC, .1 mcg Florinef and 12.5 mg DHEA at 4:30 am
5 mg at 6:45 am (right before the race start)
2.5 at 9 am
2.5 at 10 am
10 mg at 11 am
2.5 at 12 am
2.5 at 1 pm
5 mg at 2 pm
5 mg at 3 pm
That adds up to 50 mg but I might have taken more at some point!!
Most importantly for me, I used the PowerBar Gel with 200 mg sodium. I ate one of them nearly every hour. FYI I'm not sponsored by PowerBar . This is what works for me so I am sharing the information. PowerBar Gel has a much higher sodium to potassium ratio than any other product I've found. Generally, the potassium content is higher than I am comfortable with in other products. People with Addison's disease need to be careful not to over supplement Potassium.
2 days post race: 30 mg HC, 12.5 mg DHEA, .05 Florinef

2 comments:

Charles Lin M.D. said...

DHEA has many benefits which include anti-obesity , anti-diabetes and Anti-Autoimmune Disease . Dhea dosage should be limited to 25 and 150 mg’s daily.

Unknown said...

Thanks for your comment Charles. Most women need no more than 25 mg of DHEA daily. My highest tolerable maintenance dose of DHEA is 12.5 mg daily. Any more than that and my body becomes very unhappy. For women, most research recommends somewhere around 25 mg daily. Wow, I can't imagine taking 150 mg of DHEA per day, that would make me into a giant, stinky, cranky pimple! Ick!