I hate you Night Sweats

Seriously I went back and looked at my blog's history at all the posts where I complain about night sweats and it's truly unbelievable. Why do I experience these all the darn time?

They have been coming and going again. Now that I'm on florinef, I have to assume it's NOT low aldosterone but looking back a few months ago I was experiencing night sweats when I was taking my DDAVP too. It is not normal to be drenched in sweat at night. Maybe once or twice a year, but not on a regular basis.

I made a post about this on the NTH adrenal yahoo group and a lot of people have them, but no one seems to know what causes them. haha I guess there's a group of us out there that deal with this annoying sleeping interruption.

Now for some exciting news. I am doing another modified water deprivation test to see how my body is concentrating urine now that I'm on florinef. My new doc said that he'd be willing to order the labs for me since all I have to do is just not drink water for 12 hours or so. A true water deprivation test is really involved and would involve a trip to a pituitary endo. Honestly I can't handle the hassle of going to a mainstream doc and will settle for this modified (slightly dangerous) water deprivation test. LOL If I get really sick, then I'll call it off. Don't worry!

I'll be weighing myself each hour to see what happens sort of like what they do with the real test. Obviously I won't be able to test my urine osmolality, but I have strips that do specific gravity which can give me a clue. If it's really low, then I know the osmolality is low too. Unfortunately high specific gravity readings can be largely inaccurate.

Just a little while ago, I had this terrible sharp pain in my abdomen and I felt very nauseous. It came out of no where, so I took some extra HC and bile salts. Thankfully one of those fixed the pain I was having, but I'll never know which one exactly.

That is all for now. I'm not taking the armour until my sleep is better, so we will see when that happens. I feel really tired right now and think it's about time to sleep. I just hope I can sleep throughout the night without too much interruption.

More Blood Work and HC

I got my blood results back finally and here's what it said.

More of nothing...
21-Hydroxlyase Antibodies <1.0--(<1.0)
Antiadrenal Antibodies, Quant Negative--(Negative))
IGF-1 214--(116-358) Doc said this was a little low
17-alpha-Hydroxyprogesterone 104 (30-100 Follicular) Doc said this isn't high enough to worry about.

I guess I should be thankful that my body isn't attacking my adrenal glands, but...I am back to not understanding WHY my adrenals aren't working. Maybe it's just mercury toxicity? I wanted to know the reason, so that I could move on with my life. I have this condition yet no doctor can pinpoint the reason...

There is some good news.
The doctor had me start on 30mg of hydrocortisone on Thursday and it's really helping. In combination with the florinef, I can already tell a difference in my heat intolerance. While I'm not completely better yet, it must have been 85 in our house yesterday and I felt pretty good. I was extremely thirsty all day yesterday and just kept a filled Berkey water bottle next to me. It helped to keep me hydrated.

My sleep on the other hand has been absolutely terrible. I keep waking up at night, hot, sweating and extremely thirsty. Sometimes I have to use the bathroom too. Is this low aldosterone, low cortisol or do I really have diabetes insipidus? At this point, I have no idea. I haven't been taking my DDAVP recently because I wanted to see what the florinef would do for me. I'm still not sure.

Yesterday I didn't feel as good as the first day, but I'm hoping the irritability was just PMS...lol All and all I am very pleased. I am trying to wake up at a more "normal" time, so my HC doses are right. Unfortunately today I woke up around 9AM, but that' isn't too bad considering our sleep schedule used to be really screwed up waking up at 8PM and going to sleep when most folks are eating lunch.

I think I might be getting some low potassium symptoms (chest pains, irregular heart beats, leg cramps), so I self-ordered some blood work through econolabs.com. I ordered a CBC with differential and a CMP (comprehensive metabolic panel) to check my blood counts, liver enzymes and electrolyte balance. As I was writing this I checked my email and the requisition form was sent to me email already! That was really fast.

I'll have to wait and get this checked on Tuesday because Monday morning we have to go to court and I'm already nervous about it.

I Already Feel Less Bloated

I'm not great, but I can already tell a difference in the bloat. Last night though was quite hellish to say the least. I woke up like 5 times having major night sweats. I don't know if that was my body's way of shedding the extra water or what.

I was dying of heat for most of the night and had to kick the cat away from my feet and move my husband over to the other side of the bed! haha I was burning up and dying of thirst. I gulped down 16 ounces of water in about 10 seconds and was still desert mouth (that's what I call it). Obviously this is something OTHER than diabetes insipidus because I took my meds at 11:30 PM last night. I went to bed pretty late last night because I was working, but the meds should have last well through out the night and into the today.

When I woke up my pee was a normal dark color so it is working, but it didn't stop the dying of thirst feeling I'm getting. I am drinking more water right now to see when my thirst goes away. Obviously my body wants the water, so I'm drinking to see how much it wants.

The constant battling of dehydration is so damned irritating. I don't know anyone else that goes through this and it really pisses me off.

I lost 4 pounds from yesterday. My legs feel thinner. I can see more definition in the muscles, so the salt is cut...for now.