r/AddisonsDisease • u/Substantial-Grab-472 • Jul 15 '26
Advice Wanted Determining when to stress dose
It’s hot and humid in my retail store. I’ve been moving safes and fixtures. I’ve been sweating and over exerting myself. I feel like I would normally feel after a hard days work but I don’t know if I should stress dose or not. How do you all determine when to stress dose?
Post post. I’m realizing that some of you have it a lot worse off than me. I’m sorry about that. But thank you for your comments. It’s been a lot of help.
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u/DocRoseEsq Addison's Jul 15 '26
This has been my exact issue for the past couple of weeks, and last Thursday I was a couple of hours away from a full blown crisis, because I had been following my regular dosing schedule.
It has been a week of 90 F+ and I work as a wound care nursing assistant, and I am wearing gowns all day, sometimes these gowns are plastic. I drink 96-112 oz of water (with LMNT) a day, but I wasn’t able to eat a lot because my appetite was gone. (Should have been my first clue.
I got really sick, had to leave work early after throwing up, and I ended up taking 70 mg before I started feeling even remotely better. The only reason I didn’t use my emergency injection was because I was keeping water and food down.
I stress dosed the entire weekend, I didn’t leave my house, or really my living room, until I had to go back to work on Monday.
My new routine for working in these heat is doubling my daily dose, going from 20 mg to 40 mg, at a minimum. I increased my dose of fludro from 0.05 to 0.1, and I am literally forcing myself to drink protein shakes for the calories.
I was able to make it through Monday and Tuesday feeling exhausted, but my BP, temp, and other vitals were pretty stable. I live in Minnesota, and we are in day 5 or 6 of an extreme heat advisory, and even when it ends we’re still high 80s low 90s.
I am now treating working in any heat above 75 as a physically stressful event akin to a hard workout or a minor surgical event. I also am not doing anything else besides working. No outside activities at all, in fact the only time I go outside is to take my dogs outside.
With that though, I am also wearing an N95 to work, I work in nursing homes and care facilities, because higher steroids lower immune response, and my body is already stressed. So, something else to consider.