Friday, March 11, 2011

Florinef In the Summertime

During winter I do not like to take florinef even though I have adrenal insufficiency and low normal aldosterone levels.  It seems I can keep myself balanced with diet alone and the salt-wasting is not too bad.  However in the summer, I have to take florinef or my BP will go too low.  This is where my adrenal insuffiency and POTS seem to mix a lot.  The line between them is very vague here because lots of POTsies take florinef with great success.  I wish I could say it's amazing me for, but it is not.  Many people with Addison's or Adrenal insufficiency have great success with florinef too.  I really do not see the huge improvements most seem to have with it.  I wish!

 I can already tell since the weather is starting to warm up (with exception of today where we are expecting 8 inches of snow haha), that it is time to start on the florinef.  For me I like to start at a very low dose and work my way up.  However I have to be careful because my potassium levels can go below range and that's not good either.  Typically I have to take both Florinef and Rx slow release potassium tabs to keep my sodium and potassium levels in range.  When I was taking 2 tabs of florinef (0.2mg) I needed 6--20mEQ's of Potassium a day to keep my potassium levels stable.  I refuse to go on that much florinef now due to the potassium issues.  I really do not feel it is healthy to take that much potassium in a tablet form.  Your kidneys have to sort through all of that and over the years my serum creatinine has started to creep up.   Last time I had my CMP checked it was at the very top of the range!

I will start off with a low dose, probably 1/4 tab (0.025mg) and then work my way up.  I never know what I am supposed to feel from florinef.  Most of the time it feels like I'm taking a sugar pill...

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