><<I've been unable to locate any "alternative Addisonians" either (other
>than you, of course).  Are there more of us around somewhere?  >>
>
>I have never accepted pharmaceutical drugs for Addison's and have not done
>*any* pharmaceutical drugs for about 12 years now.


May be we don't talk about the same thing !.  I have been told that To
be
diagnosed with addison disease you need to reach a point where 90
percent of
the  cortex of the gland has been destroyed. You need to be close to
, or
in an addison crisis .( that can be fatal  if not treated ) With less
than
90 percent of the glands ,it is still possible for more than  the 10
percent
left to produce enough cortisone to function.
so apparently you never reach that point or did you go into crisis.?

 did you or Do you have to take adrenal extract to function or can you
produce enough of  your own cortisone?

 if i could start all over again, knowing  now what is the consequence
of
starting cortisone replacement ( complete shut down of the cortex of
the
gland ,osteoporosis etc...) and knowing better now how  to deal with
stress
i will not start the therapy  so blindly. There is many thing that
could be
done before that.

There is one young woman in our local addison disease support group
who is a
chinese doctor when she got diagnosed with addison she felt obliged to
start
the therapy despite her resistance to it .
She manage now one year latter,   to stay  on a very low dosage (
little
bit more than half normal )
and use many chinese herbs to help.

There is a naturopathic doctor  close to here who have ben diagnosed
too and
despite all the research for alternative that he did,  he had to take
the
full dosage of  cortisone

My self i started the process to reduce below the minimum dosage ( 20
mg
cortef) and manage for months with 17.5 only  .I think eating lot of
animals
products helped me to do that on top of the emotional work that i am
doing.

jean-claude