#after confirming both the fludrocortisone and the salt pills

[tj-crochets]

About your tags, but have you ever been tested for Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia(I think I might have asked you this before)? non-classic-CAH can be hard to diagnose and can misdiagnosed as both PCOS (which happened with me) and Addisons disease.

I don't know if I've ever been specifically tested for it, but I'm only now starting to test low on cortisol, and even then it's not low enough for the good medication*. I'm not super well-read on CAH, but from what I understand, I don't have most of the signs? I didn't have early puberty, I am short but did not grow rapidly at any point (and don't have a few other symptoms that are a maybe a little TMI to list here), and for classical CAH I didn't have these symptoms as a little kid. Got sidetracked talking about corticosteroids and mineralocorticoids below the read more. If you read it, please keep in mind I am not a medical professional. Please take what I say with a grain of salt (pun not intended but appreciated)

*you probably already know this nonny, but for everybody else: taking long-term corticosteroids can cause some pretty bad side effects. From what I understand, taking them as hormone replacement therapy is much less likely to cause those side effects, but your cortisol (or whichever hormone they are replacing) needs to be low enough for it to be more helpful than harmful. I know from experience (thanks to severe allergies) that corticosteroids fix like every single one of my health problems, but my cortisol levels do not test low enough yet for the docs to be willing to prescribe them to me. That said, a different doc said the same thing about prescribing me fludrocortisone (a mineralocorticoid I take that I *think* is like replacement aldosterone**) a few years ago, and then eventually a nephrologist (which was weird) prescribed it and I have had pretty much zero side effects in three years. I do get withdrawal symptoms when I've had to stop taking them a few times, but I've always gotten withdrawal symptoms for even very short course steroids. I have to up my dose when I get vaccines, but my daily dose is so low (0.05mg) I can take up to four times my usual dose as needed (with my doctor's approval) **this is my "salt levels go up" medicine. It tells my body to retain salt (and dump potassium). For me, this brings me up to closer to normal blood pressure and means I don't have to be constantly taking salt pills. For people without my combo of health issues, it runs a risk of raising blood pressure too high, raising salt levels too high***, or lowering potassium levels too much

***even WITH salt levels go up medicine, my recommended daily intake of salt is either (according to the cardiologist) "10,000mg sodium from salt pills, plus whatever is in my food", or (according to my primary care doctor) a long laugh, and a "you aren't capable of eating too much salt. Eat as much salt as you want. Pickle yourself!" (more laughter). I am sodium georg.