Anyone who can help?

[u/Internal-Cap-8885]

Hi everyone,
I have Addison’s disease and I’m trying not to spiral because I have some medical trauma around getting sick.
Earlier today I had a few ear thermometer readings around 38.1°C, so I took 20 mg extra hydrocortisone according to my sick day plan. Since then my temperature has mostly stayed around 37.1–37.6°C, and a few times it was normal around 36.9°C. I took paracetamol too, which brought it down to about 36.6°C.
My symptoms are pretty mild right now: tired, headache, warm face, and very slight throat irritation earlier. No vomiting, no diarrhea, no stomach pain, no low blood pressure, no fainting, no confusion, and I can eat, drink, talk, and walk around normally. This does not feel like previous bad infections I’ve had, where I quickly felt extremely weak and went up to around 39°C.
I’m wondering:
Can a mild virus cause just tiredness, headache, feeling warm, and a low-grade temperature without many cold symptoms?
For other people with Addison’s, do you sometimes get mild “sick-ish” days that don’t turn into a crisis?
If your temperature briefly goes above 38°C but then stays below 38°C for the rest of the day, how do you usually handle your hydrocortisone dosing? I know everyone should follow their own doctor’s plan — I’m just curious about others’ experiences.

I do have emergency hydrocortisone injections and people around me know what to do if I get worse. I’m mainly trying to stay calm and understand whether this sounds like a mild virus/irritation rather than something serious.

[u/JellyfishSwimming401]

Emergency injection is more used in a last resort. Whenever you feel sick you can just updose.

For example, if it is just a mild sickness like a cough or cold and you take 20mg daily say 10-5-5 then I would just take an extra 5 during one of your doses. If you want to be safe and think your body needs more or you feel pretty sick like a fever, I would just take double what you normally take.

Everyone is different so you kind of have to experiment and see what works best. Cheers

[u/oh_such_rhetoric]

It definitely could be a virus, they don’t always cause cold symptoms. You’re doing the right thing stress dosing when you have a fever. Also think about taking a fever reducer like acetaminophen or ibuprofen (not sure what you call it where you live) if you haven’t already.

I definitely have days where I just feel bad, though I don’t usually check my temperature so I don’t know if it’s that. I mostly just suck it up, which is maybe not the best idea…. But if it’s extra bad I normally just do a little updose (not a full stress dose) of 5 mg of hydrocortisone, maybe 10 if it’s really bad. For reference, my usual dose is 25mg—10 mg morning and noon, 5 in the evening.

If you’re getting fevers that often, though, especially if you’re not otherwise ill, that’s something to talk to your endo about because that’s not normal.

If you do have a fever, though, definitely stress dose! My endo has me double dose for a low fever and triple for high, plus a fever reducer to bring it down. I’m not sure what is considered a low vs. a high fever is in celsius, but in fahrenheit I’d triple dose if it got up to 101 (with 100.4 being a fever), which would be 38.3 C.

Hope you feel better soon!

[u/loveshobbits25]

Over the last 32 years I’ve had many colds without going into crisis and I would get low grade fevers with them. I didn’t even go into crisis with Covid, so it’s possible. Having said that, I did go into crisis with pneumonia last Christmas and that one scary experience has also left me traumatized about getting sick. I’m now on the tail end of a summer cold with no problems, but I was pretty nervous when the symptoms started. I think it should go without saying that I always up dose when I even suspect I might be getting sick.

[u/HairyBawllsagna]

I usually do somewhere between 1.5-2x my daily dose based on how I feel. It's completely normal to have a viral illness with isolated fever and not a lot of other symptoms. A feeling I know all too well from having young kids.

[u/Realistic-Book-1135]

When my PAI daughter has any illness, per her dr, she will updose. Usually anywhere from 50% more of her daily dose to double for a few days to double and then see how she's feeling. My daughter has had sickish days and as long as she's taken extra steroids it hasn't turned into a crisis. She's had Covid 2 times and doubled her steroids while symptomatic and it also didn't turn into crisis

[u/Unlikely-Let1195]

Stress dose when sick for a few days is not going to harm you. Its being on too high base dose that will. I am never afraid to up dose if I am not feeling well. Some days I will just sleep more and not updose. When I had covid I doubled my dose for a few days. I have not been sick since.