At 11:44 PM 6/26/99 -0700, you wrote:
>thank you Don for sharing this with us, i am personally very interested by
>the subject, because having addison disease i don't secrete cortisone and so
>have the tendancy to lose my sodium.

This is referred to by my Drs. as "salt wasting". I too don't secrete any
cortisone, thought my condition has never been called Addison's.
Originally, my condiiton was thought to be congenital, but when I was about
17 they began to think that perhaps it was something that developed soon
after birth. At the time, it was thought to be hereditary too - a simple
recessive that is more common in people of western European descent.
Regardless, I've always loved salt and salty foods. In fact, as a kid, I
used to order anchovy pizza and put salt on it!

 We are asked by endocrinologs to eat
>lot of salt. But i allways been split between taking it or not because i
>have the feeling that excess salt intake of my mother and my self in the
>past might be having lot to do with the collapse of my adrenal cortex.

It's my understanding that because of this salt-wasting phenomenon,
consuming lots of salt is essential for folks like us. Avoiding salt is a
bad idea. My own doctor's advice was basically to follow my cravings and
eat whatever amount of salt I want.

 Now
>because of 18 years of cortisone supplementation i am prone to osteoporosis
>that a bone density test just confirmed recently . It just happen that the
>last few months i indulged in salt a lot, following a 4 months abstinence of
>it . between too much or not enough i have hard time getting a balance each
>side having its symptoms.

I guess that just goes to show we're all individual. I've been on cortisone
supplementation since I was 5 (37 years now), in fact I seem to require
double the dose of most folks my size. They did have quite a time
regulating my dose when I was a kid - what worked the best was when they
figured out that I needed 2/3 the daily dose in the morning and 1/3 at
night. This apparently mimics the body's natural circadian rhythm (or
whatever kind of rhythm it is) of hormone secretion.

The Dr. can't figure it out - my last bone density in March of 98 was 119%
of what they expect for a woman my age. My cholesterol and LDL and HDL were
excellent (though I can't remember the particular numbers), so was BP. I
made a vain attempt at trying to explain low-carb to the nurse-practitioner
who was also preplexed by my numbers, but didn't get very far. Apparently
to her, I'm the one in a million oddball - of course, she "knows" that
everyone else needs high carb, low fat <sigh>.

Now, what is true is that I've never been a big cereal eater, in fact I
hate the stuff and always have since I was little. I did always like sweets
- cakes, cookies, pastries. Also ate sandwiches a lot growing up. Always
had a weight problem as a kid too - and I'm sure it was from too many
carbs. But I suspect that even as a kid, I didn't have the same cereal
grain consumption as most kids. Rather, I ate a lot of starchy veggies
(potatoes, carrots, peas), also corn. Because of my weight problem, my
mother didn't let me have "real" desserts that often, but in the summer
especially, fruit was okay. At any rate, my cereal-grain consumption is
even lower now. I wonder if that's the major factor in my success in
maintaining "good numbers"?

Also, when I had that last bone scan, I wasn't supplementing with calcium
either. At that time, I was eating low carb, along the lines of the
Heller's "Carbohydrate Addict's" programs, but wasn't even doing it
perfectly. In fact, I've found "controlled carb" eating to be much more of
a challange since my hysterectomy in July of '97. I've recently been
experimenting with eating dinner (aka, my "reward meal") in the morning and
that seems to be helping me control my carbs throughout the rest of the day.

>i am getting lot of exercise so it is limiting the worse.

I hate to say it, but I don't get a lot of vigorous exercise either.
Walking is it, and even that's not focused on fitness.


Kathy
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