I will start monitoring pulse and temps.



Unfortunately, I could not control my skin reactions with my normal measures, so I'm now weaning off a high dose hydrocortisone "taper". Even with high dose HC, I still itched, still had some skin texture changes, which was dismaying. Usually a brief period of HC will stop the allergic reactions very quickly.




I may need to go back on thyroid supplements/medication, but really do not want to add thyroid in at the moment. It confuses things, and makes my pain medications much less effective (or so it seems from experimentation). I've now been off thyroid for over 5 months, with no hair loss, good eyebrows, etc. so thought I was fine.



How long until your skin rashes and sleep improved? I expected my high dose hydrocortisone to make my bad insomnia worse, but instead I slept much better until I started weaning down the dose (which was on the third day of the "taper"). I'm wondering if, instead of being high cortisol, I am once again nearly flatlined...........AND, since my skin rash got so much worse since trying to eat at least partly Peat fashion, I now worry I simply will not be able to tolerate the diet.............I'm going to keep weaning down the HC, and see what happens, but meantime, I'm off all gelatin, off half and half, off cheese, off beef, off all my known allergens, with fingers crosssed. Last night I didn't get to sleep at all until after 4 am, at which time I took an extra pain pill (though not in any pain) and finally was able to sleep for a couple of short periods, until 8:30 am. I am back to using nut milks, which increases my intake of PUFAs, which is not the direction I wanted to go. And back to some grains, such as sourdough bread and oats, which, while I may have some reactions to them, do NOT cause me to get the hives/eczema that have been plaguing me recently. Once this is all past, I will start again, from scratch. Meantime, I will also be pursuing mfrs of the half and half I use, and also contacting Haagen-Dazs to see if they have changed ingredients without changing the ingredients labelling. I have run into that before, finding that skin reactions I could not account for were due to a half and half mfr adding carrageenan to the half and half without changing the labelling, causing me months of misery.
sol

Sollyb

If weaning HC causes you symptoms, you may want to look into adrenal fatigue/insufficiency. Peat says that cortisol is bad in excess, but that it shouldn't be too low either.

How much HC were you on?

Make sure you're taking your temp under the tongue, all the way in the 'pocket'.
There's a study somewhere about this....wholehealthsource or somebody out there reviewed it.

Using the armpit leaves everyone believing that their thyroid is impared.

Excellent points!!!

Sorry, it was the heart scan blog, Nov 24, The Happy Homotherm, I think is the name or the post.

I started the taper with 80 mg HC, taken 20-20-20-20
I am now weaned down to 30 mg taken at 16-8-6, which seems good, I slept ok last night, even though I also napped for several hours yesterday.

A few years ago, I did have adrenal insufficiency, treated with HC at approx 30 mg per day for around 9 months, then weaning off. Started thyroid after being on HC a couple of weeks.

I had just come off yet another HC taper (also for severe allergic skin reactions) early last year, then a month later the Peripheral Neuropathy started. I started another taper about a month after the start of the PN, then had some methyl pred (official Rx) then tapered off. All in all that was about 2 months of steroids.
(At the time the PN started I was still taking thyroid--only stopped that 5 months ago). All seemed fine, PN improving, thyroid status ok, adrenals felt ok, and so forth mostly until the past few weeks.

Looking back, it seems as if I will need to stay on the HC longer this time, and maybe add thyroid back in also.

FWIW, I take antihistamines every living day, on an escalating schedule, depending on state of allergies. And maybe once or twice a year, I have to do steroids even so. The period of 5 months just prior to this last episode was about the best I've been, antihistamine use was down condsiderably, and thyroid and adrenal status seemed good without any medication for those.....too bad it didn't last.....maybe I'm just not good at recognizing/admitting when I need to medicate again. I HATE being on steroids, and got to hate my thyroid med because it so much weakened the pain meds. (it increases the clearance of some medications including the pain meds I take). The Neuropathy is still present, but thankfully now at a lower and tolerable level, but still needing some pain meds. At this point, coming up on a year of PN, I don't really expect it to get much better or ever go away completely.

Any ideas very welcome,
somehow I got the idea that Ray Peat thinks no one should ever use any cortisol whatsoever, no matter what..........I may be just on the verge of being on a low enough pain med dose that re-starting thyroid wouldn't be so much of a problem, but I wanted to wait until this tooth extraction was completely healed--it has been difficult, and required quite a bit of pain meds, but is finally getting better day by day.
sol

Broda Barnes in his thyroid book said axial was ok. If you take the axial temp properly (takes 10 to 20 minutes for me) it is accurate. The problem is finding an accurate digital therm that stays on that long, these days most shut off way too soon, and mercury therms are hard to find. I have problems taking my temp orally, so have to take it axially.

Also, another small point--if an oral therm is placed too far back under the tongue the temp will read too high. Got that from instructions that came with one of my therms.
sol

I have found by careful experimentation that holding a digital thermometer under my tongue for 10 mins leads to an increase of .4F. That's quite a significant increase. So now I just hold it in till it beeps and add .4F. I have confirmed this is 100% accurate by holding it in my mouth for 10 mins about a billion times.

Good to know about not holding it too far back under the tongue though. I never knew that.

I just shot off an email to Peat re: HC. Will see what he says, but I was under the impression he believed in the concept of hormonal balance. So cortisol should not be too high or too low.

Should be interesting to hear what Peat has to say about cortisol. Like you, Scarlet, I would assume balance (not too high OR too low would be a good thing). But since Ray Peat has turned practically everything I ever thought I knew about health and nutrition upside down, I will be eager to hear what he has to say on THIS topic!

As for the temperature subject, now I am TOTALLY confused! I just took my temperature, 3 ways. Underarm, 97.4 F. Oral, under tongue in front of mouth, 97.5. Oral, in back of mouth, in deep pocket, 97.9.

I noticed at the doctor's office last week, they put the tip of the digital thermometer under my tongue, in the front of my mouth.

So...is the reading in the back, in the deep pocket, higher and therefore not really an accurate representation? The one under the tip of the tongue pretty much matches the underarm reading.

I am confused as to which temperature would be the best one to use for assessing thyroid function.

Scarlet,
Thanks for emailing Peat about HC, I can't wait to see what he has to say.
sol

Cathy,
I can completely agree with you, nearly everything I thought I knew is turned upside down from reading Ray Peat's articles. And nearly everything he says fits my body's responses so well that is why I want to eat according to his plan, I just have to find adaptations, compromises, exceptions that fit the conditions I have that do now work with his eating plan. I have not given up yet.



Unless the instructions that came with one of my newer therms are not correct, I would assume that to be right, but am not really certain. FYI, here is the quote from Broda Barnes, "Hypothyroidism, The Unsuspected Illness"
ppg 45-46 "Dr. Joseph Ehrlick............joined me in a study in which we determined simultaneously the oral, rectal, and armpit temperatures of one thousand soldiers.........Dr. Ehrlich and I found that in the abscense of oral infection, the temperatures of the mouth and of the armpit were alost identical when thermometers were left in place for ten minutes. The rectal temperature averaged almost a degree higher than either oral or armpit temperature. Thus, ist seemed that axillary, or underarm, temperature might serve as a simple guide to determinging low thyroid function and the need for thyroid therapy." He goes on to give the same range for normal axial temps as he used for oral temps, 97.7 to 98.2 degrees F.
Unfortunately, he says nothing detailed about placement in the mouth of the thermometer, or if he specifies, I didn't find it.
I personally went to axial because I am a mouth breather, and just can't hold the them in my mouth long enough, and also because of that my oral temps vary too much depending on them of the ambient air I'm breathing in. It is just one of my quirks.
sol

I suppose we could ask Ray Peat what he recommends regarding temperature taking, right? But I don't want to overdo it with the question thing and I already asked him a couple of questions when I was battling a recent intestinal infection.

But I would be willing to write him next week sometime, if we can't come up with an answer by then.

Cathy

I'd really like to have a consultation with Peat........and it is on my wish list.
sol

I know this is unpleasant...but has anyone ever ventured to take their temperature anally? I believe it is one of the most accurate ways to test, but I could be incorrect. Of course you would need an old fashioned thermometer, and not mind doing it this way. Any thoughts?

The temp study is updated infor.
Sometimes new is better.

Rectal temp is the most accurate, of course, and it really is easy....but no one really wants to be bothered or wants to have a thermometer strictly for that reason.

When I was working L & D, we could tell that temp was off (due to talking, mouth breathing if oral. Movement if axillary), because we can feel the heat during a vaginal exam.

Same w rectal; I am now a hospice RN and was called to see a pt who's temp was 104. They had place a cool cloth on her head so the temporal and ear temp seemed normal.
But when I went to place rectal meds, it was obvious that her temp was very high.