Scarry dizziness… low cortisol?

Hi

Summary:

(I apologize for the long post but i tried to make it sufficiently detailed. I made this summary in hope of making the rest of the text more digestible.)

I was sent to ER and diagnosed with adrenal crisis. When i was discharged several days later this diagnosis was disputed.

I still have issues of hypoglycemia, blurry vision and dizzy feeling.

For the last few days i am also having skin issues, respiratory issues and mouth cavity inflammations - feels like my immune system isn’t working.

My only guess is it could be adrenal insufficiency/fatigue but cannot get tested for it at present.

Judging by what i have written below would you say my guess is likely to be correct.

Is there anything i can do to test and mend my situation?

My background:

- I used to never (EVER) become dizzy

- I am (was prior to this) extremely active

- Work all my waking hours (prior to this)

- Considerable caffeine intake (been off for 7 weeks now)

- Get approx. 8 hours of sleep per day

- exercise 5-7 days a week (did prior to this)

- Very skinny

- Never had any blood sugar issues (prior to this)

- For several months now i have been feeling very tired and had ‘’brain fog’’

Onset:

About 5 weeks ago i started getting dizzy. It started very suddenly without a warning one midday - i turned my head aside and the room started spinning around. At the same time my vision got blurry and i felt like i am going to pass out. This was also accompanied by an extreme ‘’hot flash’’.

This subsided in a matter of seconds but for the majority of the remainder of that day I felt like i was dying. Other symptoms also appeared: stomach and intestinal pain, nausea, bloating (upper intestines), trembling and joint pain and the feeling of a pounding heart. It was so bad i could barely sit.

Towards the evening i got better and hungry as never before.

It felt at first like some kind of poisoning (i did drink a stingy/hot tasting goat milk the day before).

For the next week i was feeling better most of the time (though always tired) but i had milder recurrences of the initial episode once or twice a day. Each lasted from 30 minutes to 2 hours then subsided.

On day 6 i was feeling almost completely well but on day 7 the milder recurrences of the initial episode returned. They continued for 7 more days.

On day 15 (give or take a day) i felt good for the first 2 hours (after waking up) but then became very tired, nauseous and had stomach and intestinal pain. I couldn’t eat nor drink due to the nausea.

As hours progressed my symptoms were getting increasingly worse. Eventually i got hot flashes again and sweat was literally dripping from me (but i had no fever). In mid afternoon i became so weak i couldn’t even sit anymore and was taken to ER.

When i arrived there i was vomiting acid and bail. I was drifting in and out of sleep.

My blood sugar was 2 and potassium level was slightly below minimum normal.

The working diagnosis was ‘adrenal crisis’. They gave me an infusion of water, glucose and some chemical (i can’t remember the formula). Later they also added potassium.

For the next 2 days i was predominantly sleeping and was on water and glucose infusions.

On day 3 i was up, but my muscles were so weak i could barely even swallow. On day 4 i was out of the hospital but my muscles remained extremely weak for 5 more days.

Result:

Doctors checked my heart and also did an ultrasound of my stomach cavity and found nothing wrong. For some reason they ruled out adrenal insufficiency despite not having checked my hormone levels. The problem is that majority of the doctors do not officially recognise anything short of Addison's disease and since they found no physical defect of my adrenals they ruled out any insufficiency.

Besides slightly low potassium i also had (likely still have) low creatinine.

My dizziness and blurry vision episodes continued after getting home.

Eventually I started measuring my blood sugar every 2 hours and found it gets very low if i do not eat every 3 hours. And this also coincided with my dizziness.

Current status:

I am constantly eating to keep my sugar up and this fixed my vertigo. However i still get poor/blurry vision from time to time and a weird sensation at the back of my head which feels like the room is about to start spinning again.

I seem to get these when i work for a while but not after short term physical effort. I do not know why and it is freaking me out. I used to never be dizzy.

The second issue is i have random short periods (a few minutes) of what i can only describe as ‘’emotional weakness’’.

And the third is that i have a few bruises that are still green after 3 weeks.

Lastly, the last couple of days different mild infections have been piling up.

Thank you for any help

1 like, 12 replies