Yes, our naturopaths are Dr Poesnecker and Dr Nevill from Clymer Healing Research Center (which is nonprofit and in PA). Dr Poesnecker died in June; he was in his 70s and had been treating adrenal patients for about 45 years. They do treat people who have had an ASI (adrenal stress index test) by email/phone (which my son and I did before we were inpatients there for a couple weeks last Jan). I was originally Dx with adrenal insufficiency by a family Dr back in 1989, by way of cortrosyn stimuation test. I was inadequately treated, then not treated at all for years until a couple years ago my adrenals just crashed pretty much. Now been treated naturopathically almost one year, and recently been seen by a new endocrinologist who put me on hydrocortisone when she saw my 1989 test results (she is not sure whether primary or secondary at this point and I am having more tests run, ACTH etc, but I do find I must have mineralocorticoid- am taking licorice for that instead of florinef). When I started the HC I was already on licorice, so I started very low on HC, only 1mg and gradually upped the dose to 20mg, during which time I was off the licorice for 10 days. It became clear by then that I could not do well off the licorice, as I was having orthostatic hypotension and other symptoms (even while taking 20mg HC). So, I started the licorice up again, and reduced the HC to 2.5, then up to 5... tried 7.5mg but that seems to give me insomnia after a few days, so am back down to 5mg; we'll see how it goes on this dose.
-Katie




[This message has been edited by itskt2u (edited 08-17-2003).]

Could I ask your weight because I am about 180 and it seems I need about 3-4 tsp of licorice to stop the hypotension with about 15-20 hc. Initally it "amped" me out but I can tolerate it now. I got really dizzy on the florinef and it would be a blessing not to go on it again.

Did you try florinef at one time but stopped becauxe of side effects? What effects did you have.I got dizzy and fast heart rate.
How did you figure out to take one tsp of salt? trial and error?

one tsp was the first amount I tried when trying to increase my salt intake, and it worked; it put my blood pressure up where it's supposed to be; I take the salt along with the licorice/milk in the morning; I have never been on florinef but had read about side effects and also the fact it doesn't work for some people and that made me want to try licorice first; licorice is wonderful stuff in my book!
-Katie

Thank you debbi1234 for bringing this old thread back to light. I have been on Florinef for 18 months to prevent otherwise pretty constant "gray-outs" and a new MD (who has my full meds list) put me on his practice's "SuperViral IV," which among other components includes glycyrrhizinate, twice a week. Because I'm on Florinef I take my BP every second or third day and I noticed my BP climbing from my Florinef-augmented 107/78 to 115/82 to 130/92! A mystery. I figured it was something in the IV kicking my BP up, so I cut my Florinef back from 0.2mg to 0.15 and now to 0.10. Then yesterday I showed the MD my graph... he said it was "probably the licorice." Now with this info you brought back around, his "probably" is quite well confirmed, and I feel right about cutting my Florinef back (a cutback I initiated, not my MD... hmmm).

All that to say that I find the glycyrrhizinate (active ingredient in licorice) to be quite effective. Based on what I'm reading now, I wonder if the 400mg in the IV isn't a bit excessive?

btw - I just did a web search on what you named and found it pretty quickly.