Addison's disease is adrenal insuffiency. Only emergency personnel and friends need to understand but basically it means that your body cannot regulate sodium and potassium and both are very necessary for life and metabolism. Adrenals are poorly understood even by doctors!

The reason that you have to take hydrocortisone three times a day is to imitate the normal body. The HC is replacing cortisol. Cortisol rises to its highest point in the morning so usually you take your highest dose when you wake. It then falls to a lower amount in the later afternoon between 2-4pm so that is when most people take their second dose. Cortisol then falls off to near zero so you can sleep around midnight and then the next day the whole cycle starts again.

I take my HC three times a day - 7am, 12pm, and 4pm. I take a total of 22.5mg. I take florinef only once a day if I take .1, but if I have to take more, I take the additional dose at night to divide the dose. I also take salt tablets to help me feel better. I also add a lot of salt to my diet. That helps.

You must take your pills. and you must take the on time (pretty close) to keep healthy and alive... I hope people around you will come to understand that. Do you have a bracelet to wear to make people aware that you have an urgent medical condition - like medic-alert?

Hi Natalie,
My son is 14 and was diagnosed with Addison's about 4 weeks ago. He still feels very bad and gets nauseous some, but that has improved greatly. He was sick and throwing up before starting the cortef. He lost 18 pounds in a couple of weeks. Now he is still too tired to go to school or do anything else. He sleeps a lot. We may have to home school him next year if he doesn't improve. He takes cortef three time a day and never misses. His BP drops and he get a lot of headaches. He just started a low dose of Florinef which I am hoping will help with the headaches.