<rant warning :)> Parents WILL not believe (or even research) - another stress dose..

January 27, 2008

Ugggh,

I can guarantee my parents one thing - IF my adrenals are

insufficient in ANY way, when I finally get completely off the IC

(I'm currently at 12-14 mg/d at (2/2/2/[1]) and get my testing done,

they WILL be worse than they are now - unless my HPA is a hell of a

lot better at protecting itself from stress than I feel it to be (now

or ever)..

My dad got mad at the computer spreadsheet (tax time.. and his

classe's exam time - FUN!), and then the Bluetooth mouse didn't want

to connect to the computer, and he couldn't find the damn battery

tester.. And of course blew up? (Are you thinking HE might have

AF? So am I. But I don't want to be any more of a hypochondriac

than I already am, so I'm not going to even suggst it..)

And as usual, he gets mad at me for not being able to " put up with

a little bit of stress " (batle hardened he is by a year in

Vietnam*..) when I all but go into the fetal position when he gets

like this, and then I shout something at him to look up adrenal

insufficincy and read it. The he says something I forget that began

with " Oh *CRAP*! " Then I stress dose 1 pill isocort, adn go to sleep

sort of.. Perhaps should have done more, but I don't want to mess up

the [supposed] progress of my wean any more than I just have to - I'm

probbly dragging the HPA down even more by NOT stress dosing 2 or 3

pills, which would be equal to my usual 4-hr dose at this stage..

I'm not sure exactly *what* all the things he would cite as

evidence that I'm hypochondriac are - he doesn't either, so we're

even their. One I think is that I thought I was hypoT (I was right),

another is the fluroide thing (I'm probably right - I don't say

'right' because I haven't lined up my research ducks in a very

straight row yet, and the fluoride thing involves an element of

'government conspiracy' - the phrase 'extraordinary claims require

extraordinary evidence' comes to mind - which I don't have at the tip

of my fingers like I feel I should).

Another probably would be my insistence (unheeded of course) that

he should take Co-Q10 because of the statin (that's actually BACKED

by the Lovastatin Phase I trial, and numerous other things, one of

which I KNOW is on PubMed [i just can't get to it because I'm not a

MedSchool student so no access to the online journal], and the fact

that he shouldn't be taking the statin AT ALL.. And by extension

that the " obviously true " (sic) cholesterol hypothesis is wrong

(plenty of evidence, just not in a " nice-duck-row " , not that he'd pay

attention anyway). Jesus, the cover of *Businessweek* this week for

Mike's sake has a big questionmark made of pills and in big letters

" LIPITOR: DOES IT DO ANY GOOD? " Never read by the oh-*so*-skeptical

parent..

Mostly the fact that I " find these things on the Internet.. " and I

couldn't hear anything he said after that (if he said anything at

all, or just trailed off in verbal ellipsis). Well, HE is the one

taking the statin on the say so of his doctor (with NO questining)

and ONE blood test. That's funny because about 6-10 years ago (the

blessing/curse of my eidetic verbal memory) he said that he didn't

think " they " had a CLUE what the deal was with cholesterol (they were

talking about eggs on the news - first their the wonder food, then

they are poison, then they are sort of good - but DON " T EAT THE

YOLKS!!.. He said SPECIFICALLY, " the body *makes* the damn stuff for

crying out loud! "

If I had a spine AND HPA made of a " top-secret DoD steel-nickle-

titanium-urbium alloy doped with unilquadium** atoms " , I would throw

this quote back in his faces, but he wouldn't remember it surely, or

even making it generally.. I keep wanting to just go down to 2/2/2

on the IsoCort (and then either to 0, or 1/1/1 and then 0). But the

past two or three days, something has always come up after 4PM that

seems to call for a stress dose (that is, if stress doses do much

good after-the-fact - I assume they limit further damage as much as

they can)

I'm not sure I DARE thell them that during the 16-20 day " HPA

reset " period, I will need a stress-free (as possible as that gets

around here) environment, as it would just provoke the situation

further, and might even produce the opposite environment (I don't

think my dad is *that* sadistic, but.. ignorance can create things

that the creator is unaware of out of.. ignorance..)

Of course, I might just have an adrenal crash, land in the ER, and

then they'd HAVE to listen Not my favorite idea, but it might

work. Of course, diabetes landing me in the hospital for a day

getting normalized from 572 to something more reasonable around

80-100 didn't - the FIRST thing he said when I came home was, " Surely

there are more things than just diabetes than can cause high blood

sugars.. " No, not really.. Not that high anyway. I atrribute that

to just shock-denial, which is understandable, although I won't

forgive him easily for ignoring all the research I'd pull together

about that damn anti-CD3 trial (although then I'd have been at the

mercy of a " 3-sided die [1/3 control, 2/3 active group assignment]),

or of taking an interest in my damn attempt to get the damn disease

cured (or " the most we can do short of that with reasonable safety " )

and " go to bat " for me getting in touch with that endo in CA (who has

Type 1 and is pissed off there isn't a cure yet), and possibly

Lahita (relatively well-known if not world-class *practicing*

immunologist and author of Women and Autoimmune Disease)..

And I won't forgive him for ignoring my rather unique (to put it

mildly) vocal abilities (or at least potential of abilities) - 3

octave range at least on some notes.. But if my REALLY big dreams

come true (actually, any of several), then they WON'T hear the end of

it for a while..

And if I told them I wanted to get tested for toxic metals.. Then

they'd flip (litterally). Fortunately, if I choose to get tested,

they don't have to know a damn thing.. It'll be interesting if I get

my grandmother's TSH,T3,T4 tested with a ZRT blood-speck test and

they *do* come back hypo (getting 3/4 a bottle of saliva would be too

complicated to do unobtrusively - she'd forget about one blood spec I

hope).. Then they'd have some real soul searching to do.. Both of

them - including my mother " I just don't think so.. I don't know

why, but I *just* have a feeling that's not it.. " Jesus, and people

today supposedly live by tests numbers??

And all hell would break loose if I wanted to start treatment with

oxytocin or even get tested - as if it would do any good at this

point.. 15 or 20 *years* ago it might have done some good, but

probably not know ..

As Jesus said somewhere in the Bible (taken out of its

metaphorical context) " You must hate your mother and father " ..

MAYBE it will dawn on my mother (like that damn wayward skillet

banging people ont he head in the steakhouse commercial) that I have

seemed *worse* since starting the IsoCort weaning. The ONLY reason

she is against the IsoCort (other than that it's 13 pills a day - OF

THE SAME DAMN STUFF - doesn't could as different drugs. Hormones

don't count as drugs in my book anyway is that the damn endo-idiot

(who she has her own reasons not to trust) said it was " dangerous " .

I assume he was talking about suppression (I specically asked about

Ecchinachea and autoimmunity - he said that wasn't it) Hell, like 3

measly mg is *possibly* going to shut down my HPA unless I *really*

have AF - and then I'd be on the damn floor passed out I'm sure.. (I

didn't mention that it was only 3 mg - didn't know if fact that a

pill is only 2 mg). Of course, she's taking a doctor's word on

" blind faith " and is on Crestor (never mind that I think the

Framingham study showed NO benefit for women over 50..)

And they say blind faith in " traditional " religion is a bad

thing.. Good book title, " Blind Medicine, The New American

Religion " . People ghost-write *books* - can I just ghost-write the

*titles*?

As a country song goes, maybe I should just run off with Pearl

Jam.. (like that would be less stress - at least it would be " eu-

stress " ) Or perhaps Shoman could talk some sense into them -

at least that would least a month until I get a damn clean cortisol

test done. I DO have ONE uncontaminated morning cort number (low -

but not according to the $#%2 range), ad the non-doubling of the ACTH

Stim. <turn on sing-song-ish, little-kid teacher voice> " But that

would require that they actually trust a test number. "

Maybe I should go back the the %@# endo and waste another $300 of

their money. Instead of perhaps Doc Don ($200/hr) or Henry Linderman

($210/hr), both of whom would be INFINITELY preferable. They seem to

at least listen if the endo-idiot-God(?) says something rather than

me - after I dig up a journal article or two backing up that 17 is

NOT a normal morning cort number (for anyone). Heck, my mom said

perhaps we (always 'we', never 'you'.. is co-dependency a sign of AF

or hypoT??) should go see Dr. Bernstein - at *$450/hr* (his initial

physical-to-end-all-physicals is 3 days long and costs 6.5 thousand

dollars give or take a hundred or so. I don't know if that includes

blood tests)

Val, I'm gettin' there to never trusting doctors - not after

probably screwing up half my life already due to a probably endocrine/

growth/development problem that my parents AND pediatrician missed.

That and not treating my $#%@ acne with either immunosupressant

antibiotics (as it eventually was - finally kicked the immune system

into developing tolerance to the little buggers!) or low-dose

cortisol (like ANYONE would have actually have read Jeffries book!)

Jim

* A teacher/AI of mine knew someone who was actually doing researach

on the offspring of Vietnam vets. About the parent-child interaction

problems it caused if I remember right.

** Ununquadium (114 electrons) actually does exist - sort of. Unless

they've decided on an official name for it. But it's radioactive,

and only lives for 2.6-30 seconds. Uuq-298 might be relatively

stable though.

January 27, 2008

I just realized something that probably explains a lot (probably

more than I know) about me and my Dad. What he calls " putting up

with stress " and what I do are completely different - his is a

conscious, and " emotionally painful " process, I would much rather it

be an unconscious neuro-endocrine process based on cortisol. (Three

guesses on which is better in terms of cell oxidization, etc..) I

suppose that might link with the Navy training thing - some people

just have incredibly (biochemically) tolerance HPA axes, the rest of

us - we just have to " put up with it " by.. whatever the painful and

destructive conscious process is.. Or they just inject people with

steroids to pump up the system - I'm not sure they were still doing

this in Vietnam, Jeffries mentions it with reference to WWII though.

I wonder if he was exposed to Agent Orange, and if that might have

affected me - I'm not sure if his tour was before I was born or not,

or whether Agent Orange can cause endocrine-disrupting affects that

work *through* sperm..

If so, my chapter to the book I'm thinking of " Stolen Lives,

Stolen Futures " (all about hypoT, hypoC, and more severe endocrine

problems from the *patients'* [suffereres, 'affectees', people,

whatever] POVs) gets a bit more interesting.

Jim

January 27, 2008