You're very welcome, Andrea. I was started out in November on 5 mg of Cortef 3 times a day. It helped some but I still was feeling quite badly. So when I consulted with my new holistic doc, he retested me extensively and increased me to 7.5 mg in the a.m., 7.5 mg mid-day and 5 mg in the afternoon. And he gave me instructions to increase the dosages by 2.5 mg in each dosing when under stress from illness or anything else.

The doc also discovered estrogen dominance again, low DHEA levels, 2 bad bacterial intestinal infections that were causing bad systemic side effects, a problem with my serotonin metabolism so I was deficient in serotonin, a weakness in one of my detoxification pathways which is being corrected with the use of Glycine, and I had to increase my Vitamin D3 supplementation. I had been tested many months ago and my test revealed severe Vitamin D deficiency -- I was in the category for Ricketts! also, despite supplementation with high quality supplements, I was still extremely deficient in Vitamin B6, magnesium and Zinc. I can't remember everything else they've found -- but it sure was worthwhile to have all the tests done!

However, I felt myself crashing again a couple of weeks ago. Went back into see the doc. It seems the Spring allergy season was taxing my system terribly and my adrenals were struggling to keep up with everything. So, just for now I'm up to 10mg/10mg/5mg. I'm hoping to be able to lower that as soon as the worst of the pollens are over with, but we'll see. I have severe adrenal exhaustion so I'm not surprised to be near the top end for physiological dosages. I'm also on a bunch of supportive remedies to help me through allergy season -- Quercitin and Bromelain, D-Ribose, Perimine, and I use the Immune Stimulator by NSP too. There's more that I'm taking and doing but I get quite tired thinking about it. lol!

I'm also on small doses of DHEA (5 mg a.m./5 mg p.m.)
Also had to increase my natural progesterone cream because the adrenal shut down caused estrogen dominance. And I'm on a slew of other supplements and remedies. Trying desparately to find some supportive balance so I can maybe do some chelation at some point.

Hope I haven't confused you!

SomedaySoon (Sharon)