What kind of problems necessitate you to taper down? I started on HC at 5 mg w/ breakfast but found that even at this amount I had anxiety, dizziness, nausea, headaches, fatigue and restless sleep, so I've cut down to 2.5 mg.
You could be feeling like this because your starting on to high of a dose. When I started on it I did 2.5mgs here is the chart I used.
Day 1-3: 2.5 mg first thing in the AM (2.5 mg total)
Day 4-6: 2.5 mg first thing, 2.5 mg in four hours (5 mg total)
Day 7-9: 2.5 mg first thing; 2.5 mg in four hours; 2.5 mg in four hours (7 1/2 mg total)
Day 10-12: 5 mg first thing; 2.5 mg in four hours; 2.5 mg in four hours (10 mg total)
Day 13-16: 5 mg first thing; 5 mg in four hours; 2.5 mg in four hours; 2.5 mg bedtime (15 mg total)
Day 17-20: 10 mg first thing; 5 mg in four hours; 2.5 mg in four hours; Bedtime 2.5 mg (20 mg total)
So what can happen is you do to much to start and have a lot of thyroid hormone in your blood. Takeing a higher dose of HC can cause you to dump your thyroid hormones into your cells all at once this will make you feel like this. After all you need Cortiosl to carry the Thyroid hormone out of the blood into the cells. If your low on Cortisol do to Adrenal Fatigue and you add to much of a dose at starting on HC you can end up with dumping a lot of Thyroid hormones into your cells.
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The following comes from Peatfield’s book Your Thyroid and How to Keep It Healthy:
Page 122, Your Thyroid and How to Keep it Healthy:
Once the hydrocortisone is started, the full support dose is now built up to effective levels over two or three weeks….spread out through the waking day. The reason (to spread the doses out throughout the waking day) is that it is not stored by the body and gets rapidly used; two or three hours will see it pretty well used up completely. Since a smooth level of support is desirable, the dose needs to be spread out. The final dose is usually 20 mgs daily, that is half a tablet four times a day; but careful adjustment relating to the response may take the dose to 25 or 30 mgs daily, exceptionally even 40 mgs. These higher doses are related more to absorption in the stomach than to deficiency, but low adrenal reserve reaching Addisonian levels may make such doses necessary.
And on page 123:
The length of time necessary to provide adrenal support is really very variable. My normal practice has usually been to obtain the best result with thyroid and adrenal support, and after six or eight weeks {of having optimal thyroid support with optimal cortisol support], start to tail off the cortisone supplement. If there is no adverse results, it may then be stopped–taking, say four weeks in the process. Sometimes, the patient starts to lose ground; and you then have the choice of replacing it with a glandular concentrate for a longer period or restarting the cortisone, and in another eight weeks or so another attempt to tail it off is made. Sometimes, the adrenals have been so badly hit that the adrenal support may be required for months, and if the adrenal glands never fully recover, for a more indefinite time. Again, I emphasize that if adrenal support is required, it must be given for as long as it takes; there is no risk to this since one is simply restoring the situation to normal, in the same way, and for the same reason, that thyroid support may have to be given indefinitely.
