Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

injections

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • #31
    hi rohr
    i have very very low cortisol....
    it is .39 and should never be less than 4.5, according to my hormone doc,
    who told me this is quite serious...
    my GP said that having major surgery while having very low cortisol is
    "very dangerous...you could die"
    you can't recover from major surgery when you start out exhausted...
    no surgeon will take you...

    people with Addisons Disease are treated...
    perhaps, after tx brings their levels back up is when
    they can have surgery...

    right now, i will get the MRI (apparently to rule out possible benign
    pituitary tumor), see endocrinologist, and we will see....
    i am definitely suspending steroid shots for immediate and near future....
    would be due for more early April....want to see if going without the shots
    brings cortisol levels back up...
    GP betting on some kind of pituitary problem, i'm betting on steroid shots
    causing it....

    i am still getting botox shots...

    thanks for the kind words.....

    jess

    Comment


    • #32
      Low cortisol-my experience

      I was on Advair(steroid-bronchodilator) inhaler, for one year, both medium and lower strength for reactive airway disease. When I get too many allergens I really have trouble breathing although I have never been diagnosed with asthma. I also had 3 courses of oral steroids in one year for extreme dust from construction. With my pulmonologist approval we tried reducing and tapering off the steroid inhaler. I actually felt terrible for weeks afterward with no stamina and easily became hypoglycemic as well as having palpitations. Cardiology workup negative but my cardiology understood it COULD be low cortisol based on these therapies. I started doing Buteyko as an alternative breathing program. I looked up on-line both medical and anecdotal info on this. I add that I developed a belly without gaining weight which is a characteristic developement with steroids; it went down when I came off the stuff. Also the low blood sugar abated. Steroids are very bad for bone density as well.

      The scientific explanation-in layman's terms: exogenous cortisones/steroids make the adrenal glands-which produce one's own cortisol "lazy". Cortisol is needed to handle stress. If a person, with low cortisol, has a stressful event:surgery, severe illness the blood pressure can drop drastically. This can happen as long as a year after the last chronic doses but varies from person to person. When I was a practicing nurse-anesthetist the patient was queried about steroid use. Steroids were given before and during surgery to enable a steroid-history patient to withstand the surgical stress.

      I was assured by a former pulmonary guy that the steroid inhaler would not go into the rest of my body. The last time I saw him I asked why do I have this belly without gaining weight? When I read the drug literature indeed steroid was found in the bloodstream. Every medication we are given must go somewhere and be excreted from the body somehow.
      Original scoliosis surgery 1956 T-4 to L-2 ~100 degree thoracic (triple)curves at age 14. NO hardware-lost correction.
      Anterior/posterior revision T-4 to Sacrum in 2002, age 60, by Dr. Boachie-Adjei @Hospital for Special Surgery, NY = 50% correction

      Comment


      • #33
        thanks for the information, Karen, and for sharing your story...

        strange...the last year i worked in NYC, i had a lot of stress, and very high
        adrenals...Lonner is actually one of the doctors who advised me to retire!
        my adrenal function was so high i tested off the charts, literally!

        now it seems my adrenals aren't functioning...
        my ACTH is low, too...she didn't think that would happen if it
        was caused by steroids...but ACTH is connected to cortisol, so i think
        it could happen with steroids as the cause of all this...
        i really believed shooting steroid directly into a joint kept it out of
        the blood stream....i guess it makes sense it doesn't stay there....

        when i was on steroids years ago, i gained weight everywhere, not
        just stomach...and i had that rounded "moon" face, too....

        thanks again....
        jess

        Comment


        • #34
          Originally posted by jrnyc
          GP just called....
          MRI of pituitary was normal...
          so i am assuming the cortisol problem comes from steroid shots...
          but will see endocrinologist Friday, see what he says....

          jess
          Well I just googled it! Apparently stopping the shots can result in low cortisol. But you have been getting them regularly for the last many months.

          The pituitary hormone production being normal and the MRI being normal rule out that as any cause of the the low adrenal gland hormone production as I understand it.

          They have to rule out the shots somehow.

          My horse is on thyroxine to supplement his own hormone production because his metabolism suddenly slowed two years ago. It is not necessarily that his body doesn't make enough thyroxine but adding it to the diet in combination with a restricted calorie diet has been shown to keep weight down i horses. Anyway, I was warned that if I wanted to stop giving it to him I would have to wean him off so that his own production ramps back up.

          Maybe the time between your shots is actually long enough such that your body was relying on the shots and decreased production. When the shots wear off, your own cortisol production has not rebounded. They have to rule that out I would think.

          What does Sparky think? :-)
          Sharon, mother of identical twin girls with scoliosis

          No island of sanity.

          Question: What do you call alternative medicine that works?
          Answer: Medicine


          "We are all African."

          Comment


          • #35
            GP just called....
            MRI of pituitary was normal...
            so i am assuming the cortisol problem comes from steroid shots...
            but will see endocrinologist Friday, see what he says

            SPARKY thinks everything is fine as long as he gets his Greenies for treats....
            he went to vet yesterday...the older he gets, the more scared he is of her, a very nice lady
            he shook and vibrated til we were done, even though she didnt do anything to him!

            i am sure in my gut that this is from the steroid shots....the last round, the nurse said
            he gave me "a ton of steroid," since the time before the shots didn't help me and i complained about it...
            so he was determined the shots get into the joints this last time, and that they help relieve my pain...
            he probably went overboard....
            this exhaustion started about 6 months,ago, and i started the shots 9 months ago....
            the exhaustion got the worst in the last 3 months, after the big dose steroid shots!!

            jess
            Last edited by jrnyc; 12-18-2012, 09:22 PM.

            Comment


            • #36
              But the docs are supposed to know what safe levels of steroid are. I know everyone reacts differently and some fall WAY out of the norm, but you'd think he would keep himself aware of this risk, especially because you are so tiny. Just a thought because my doc is VERY afraid to give too much steroid. He didn't actually tell me what the risks are except for skin dimpling (trigger point injections), but I can look it up, which I WILL do, especially after your "incident". I hope everything turns out okay.

              If this IS the cause, you may be having to have surgery when you are better... :-(
              Be happy!
              We don't know what tomorrow brings,
              but we are alive today!

              Comment


              • #37
                Glad the pituitary was good Jess, but is there an alternative to the steroids? So sorry to read of this extra complication.
                Surgery March 3, 2009 at almost 58, now 63.
                Dr. Askin, Brisbane, Australia
                T4-Pelvis, Posterior only
                Osteotomies and Laminectomies
                Was 68 degrees, now 22 and pain free

                Comment


                • #38
                  hey rohr and Jen G
                  i do not know that the pain management doctor in CT (who is also a surgeon who does scoli surgeries,
                  including minimally invasive) cares or worries about it....
                  i know from another pain doc that the limit is either 3 or 4 times a year, i forgot which it is...
                  i was getting the SI joint shots every 10-12 weeks, and completly forgot about the limits to
                  how many per year....i got such good pain relief at first, it was such an emotional as well as physical
                  relief...
                  i do not think there is any alternative to the steroid shots as far as pain relief, in my experience...

                  but no surgeon guarantees a patient will be without pain after surgery, though every surgeon i
                  consulted with said they thought i would be in less pain....
                  but there is no chance of having major surgery until cortisol level comes back up....
                  if it will....i understand there is a test they can do to see if your body will start
                  producing cortisol again eventually...

                  thanks for the concern....

                  jess
                  Last edited by jrnyc; 03-06-2012, 07:51 PM.

                  Comment


                  • #39
                    Originally posted by jrnyc View Post
                    .i understand there is a test they can do to see if your body will start
                    producing cortisol again eventually...
                    I think if it is due to the shots then your body will start making it again just like with my horse. Putting him on thyroxine doesn't damage his ability to produce the hormone per the vet. It ramps back up over time.
                    Sharon, mother of identical twin girls with scoliosis

                    No island of sanity.

                    Question: What do you call alternative medicine that works?
                    Answer: Medicine


                    "We are all African."

                    Comment


                    • #40
                      i sure hope so, Sharon....
                      it is just the .39 blood test result really shocked me....when it should be at least 4.5
                      no wonder i have gotten more and more tired over the last 6 months, with the last
                      3 being dreadful....i hate feeling so tired!

                      i hope your horse does well....
                      i never like to hear about animals not being well....poor babies...
                      how do we make them understand what is going on....

                      jess...& Sparky
                      Last edited by jrnyc; 03-06-2012, 07:52 PM.

                      Comment


                      • #41
                        well, endocrinologist thinks cortisol problem is from steroid shots...
                        it can take up to a year to come back, though he thinks it won't take me
                        that long...he ordered a bunch of blood work to be done in a month...
                        and he said to talk to my hormone doc in CA, as i am on a little too much
                        thyroid med...so i made a phone consult appt for Tuesday...
                        the endo guy said he could give me cortiol if need be, but he wants
                        to see when/if my body can fix itself...
                        the longer away from the shots, the better chance it can come back on it's own...
                        so of course, i am not going for any more shots for now!

                        i am still totatlly exhausted, and really doubt this will fix itself fast....
                        but i am due for shots in a month, so maybe after that point i will start to
                        feel better....i hope so!!

                        jess

                        Comment


                        • #42
                          Jess,

                          I hope things start looking up for you.

                          How's Sparky?

                          Melissa
                          Melissa

                          Fused from C2 - sacrum 7/2011

                          April 21, 2020- another broken rod surgery

                          Comment


                          • #43
                            hi Melissa
                            Sparky is good, thanks...he is over his bladder infection....it took 6 weeks of antibiotic pills
                            for him...we finally hid them in kielbasa, since he spit them out when i tried to put them down
                            his throat...he loves any kind of sausage, so it was no problem for him to take the pills that
                            way...
                            i am worried about how bad my lumbar pain will get when i no longer get SI joint shots....
                            i would be due in a month, so i expect my lower back pain to increase....
                            but i cannot consider surgery with low cortisol...no energy to recover....
                            so i am just going to wait...
                            the endo guy gave me blood work orders for one month from now...he will check
                            cortisol, everything connected to it, thyroid, kidneys, etc etc....
                            for now, i just have to rest and wait out the exhaustion....
                            very frustrating...i always used to be a naturally hyper person....

                            i hope you have better luck with the next pain management doctor you see...

                            jess

                            Comment


                            • #44
                              i am still very tired, and i dont know if my cortisol is coming back, but the pain is back....
                              the steroids are leaving my body...it is now over 3 months since last SI joint injections, and
                              i feel the lumbar pain returning big time...
                              i do not know what i will try...maybe nerve ablation, since no steroids are involved...
                              but that never helped much before...
                              i go for blood work next Tuesday, to see how cortisol numbers are.....

                              jess

                              Comment


                              • #45
                                Originally posted by jrnyc View Post
                                i am still very tired, and i dont know if my cortisol is coming back, but the pain is back....
                                the steroids are leaving my body...it is now over 3 months since last SI joint injections, and
                                i feel the lumbar pain returning big time...
                                i do not know what i will try...maybe nerve ablation, since no steroids are involved...
                                but that never helped much before...
                                i go for blood work next Tuesday, to see how cortisol numbers are.....

                                jess
                                I thought you were supposed to go for bloodwork yesterday, the 16th. Did they postpone it?
                                I'm sorry you are having your pain return.

                                I went for deep muscle "massage" today. I had lower back pain and sciatic pain down both legs last night. When I went in today, he targeted my hips to intentionally make the pain shoot down my legs. He said they were trigger points. I say he was irritating already irritated nerves. I told him that the epidurals took care of that pain and he said it didn't make sense to him since he thought it was muscular.
                                I don't know if I can keep this up. I know it gets worse before it gets better, but...

                                Back to you. Perhaps your pain management doctor will have some suggestions to help you with your pain. Have you ever thought of having an intrathecal pump? I have read somewhere that some scoli docs actually use intrathecal medications during and after surgeries to help with post-op pain. They can be removed or left in place if you have surgery. You wouldn't have to take any more oral meds, either. I certainly hope you start feeling better. I would hate to see you having to go on oral steroids. :-(

                                Take care,
                                Rohrer01
                                Be happy!
                                We don't know what tomorrow brings,
                                but we are alive today!

                                Comment

                                Working...
                                X