A new hydrocortisone trail- maybe 25-35mg of HC is too much....

[Guest guest]

I thought this might be interesting for some who take 25mg and up of

HC. It might be surpressing your adrenals and in turn, you cannot

live without it. They say 5mg is suffice to give the adrenals just

enough of a break to recover, you won't feel 100% of course until

your body heals itself.

I guess for stage 7, you'd need the very maximum, but anything less

it sounds like the dose should be the bare minimum.

A new hydrocortisone trial

A randomised, controlled, crossover trial of low-dose hydrocortisone

treatment for CFS has been published. 32 participants, fulfilling

both the Oxford and CDC 1994 criteria, completed this short-term

trial. Participants received 5mg or 10mg of hydrocortisone for 28

days and placebo for 28 days.

The results revealed modest, statistically significant improvements

in fatigue with this low-dose hydrocortisone treatment compared with

placebo. The degree of disability was also reduced with

hydrocortisone treatment but not with placebo. There was no

significant difference in changes in fatigue score when 5mg and 10mg

doses were compared. The authors suggest that, in view of the lack of

dose response in this study, 5mg is a sufficient dose of

hydrocortisone.

Participants who responded to this hydrocortisone treatment did not

differ from 'non-responders' in terms of their pre-treatment cortisol

levels. Although none of the participants in this study had a current

psychiatric illness, those who responded to hydrocortisone treatment

had fewer psychiatric symptoms prior to treatment.

Based on the results of the insulin stress test, this short-term, low

dose hydrocortisone treatment was not found to cause significant

suppression of adrenal gland function. None of the participants

dropped out of the study and only minor side effects were reported.

The authors conclude that this low-dose hydrocortisone treatment

resulted in " significant reduction in self-rated fatigue and

disability in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome " .

Comment

This study sheds interesting light on the possible role of low

cortisol levels in the disease processes involved in CFS. Caution is

required, however, in interpreting the results. Participants'

baseline cortisol levels could not predict their response to

hydrocortisone treatment and participants appeared to have baseline

cortisol levels within the normal reference range.

In another randomised controlled trial of hydrocortisone therapy (

see Interaction 29, page 21 for a review), McKenzie at al., used a

higher 'low-dose' hydrocortisone treatment of 25 - 35mg daily. They

found that this dose was associated with some improvements in

symptoms but caused significant adrenal suppression. Neither of these

research teams currently recommended the use of hydrocortone as a

treatment for CFS. The present study assessed the effects of

hydrocortisone treatment in the short-term only. As the authors point

out, further studies, involving longer durations of treatment and

follow-up are required to assess the long-term effectiveness and

safety of this treatment.

Reference: Cleare et al; The Lancet, 1999, Vol. 353 February 6, p455-

458

Took from website

http://www.drmyhill.co.uk/article.cfm?id=266