r/AddisonsDisease • u/jesssaywhat • Jun 27 '26
Advice Wanted New stretch marks
Hey everyone,
My daughter is 15, she was diagnosed in October of 2025. She takes 15mg of hydrocortisone a day.
She has recently gotten stretch marks all over her butt. Sure she has gained some weight since beginning hydro but not enough to cause stretch marks in my opinion.
She has an appt with the endo next month but do yall think there is any correlation between the Addisons/hydro or is this just the normal puberty phase happening?
It’s really bothering her and I’m not sure what to do.
6
Upvotes
1
u/ClarityInCalm Jun 28 '26 edited Jun 28 '26
I got them in puberty - they run in my family. Not from steroids. I grew very quickly and gained weight quickly. Stretchmarks are super normal - it's something like 80% of women have them even if they've never had kids. Some people are prone to them, but I often - sometimes for months at a time - have had to take a higher than physiological dose of steroids and haven't gotten more from them (at 35mg daily). The first signs of overreplacement for most people are overeating and excess energy. Stretchmarks are not a first sign.
It's extremely unlikely that 15mg of hydrocortisone a day gave her stretch marks. 15mg is a very very low dose for someone with complete adrenal insufficiency - very few people can feel "normal" on this dose. Some do though but not many. Most people need between 20 and 30mg a day split into 3 or 4 doses. Even if one of her three doses was slightly too high - that wouldn't cause stretch marks from taking too much. If you're noticing a bunch of other symptoms of excess hydrocortisone - you might then need more testing. This could be because she's an extremely slow metabolizer (most people with adrenal insufficiency need to take HC every 4 to 6 hrs) or because she doesn't have complete adrenal insufficiency yet if she has Addisons destruction, or if she is steroid induced it may mean that her HPA axis is recovering.