This website has a very easy to follow chart that explains all of the hormones that each gland secretes, along with symptoms of deficiency and symptoms of excess of those hormones → http://www.goodhormonehealth.com/symptoms/gland_hormone_symptom_table.html
This document has a good explanation of how the thyroid gland works → http://www.goodhormonehealth.com/thyroid-cecils.pdf
BTW - the fact that your thyroid antibodies blood work came back abnormal is notable. How MUCH it is over the ‘normal’ range isn’t the issue…but it is concerning that perhaps your doctors have possibly ignored the possibility that you could have Hashimoto’s thyroid disease.
If you are taking iron supplements, don’t take them at the same time that you take your Vitamin D supplements because the Vitamin D will bind to the iron and the D won’t be absorbed as well.
Since you’re been taking prednisone for long, at some point if your doctors decide to take you off of prednisone, then you need to gradually wean yourself off of it. Otherwise, you could end up in an adrenal insufficiency situation, which can be a medical crisis/life threatening situation. The adrenal glands are complicated and they produce a few different hormones. Adrenal hormones play a role in testosterone production. They also produce the “fight or flight” response associated with epinephrine. But there’s also a hormone called aldosterone that the adrenals produce that can elevate or decrease your blood pressure & pulse. This book chapter explains it all really well → http://www.goodhormonehealth.com/adrenal-cecils.pdf
Clearly, you have a complicated medical history, so it’s important to consider your situation from a big picture point of view. The frustrating part about a lot of specialists is that they will only look at your from their individual specialty. Most endocrinologists, for example, are really only familiar with diabetes or thyroid disease and hardly ever see anybody with some of the more rare endocrine disorders…so you could be the zebra standing right in front of them, but since they are so used to seeing horses, they say that you’re a horse.
For example:
Long term use of prednisone can, over time, sometimes result in your pituitary-adrenal response being decreased. In other words, your body doesn’t produce as much adrenal hormones because you’re getting steroids in pill form. If you go “cold turkey” off of steroids, you could experience the following symptoms (sometimes they will come and go as your body is under stress) of adrenal insufficiency:
fatigue - sometimes mild, but at other times it may feel like you’re been hit by a bus and all you want to do is lay down and sleep for 6 hours.
muscle weakness
loss of appetite
weight loss
nausea
vomiting
diarrhea
low blood pressure, which falls when you stand up, causing dizziness or fainting
low blood sugar
menstrual periods can become irregular or stop altogether
dehydration
Has anyone asked you to do a 24-hour urine collection to check your catecholamine levels? Or done blood work to check your metanephrine & catecholamine levels in your blood?
If you have episodes of the following, however, then ask your doctors to do blood work to check for pheochromocytoma:
episodes of high blood pressure
rapid heartbeat
profound sweating
severe headache
tremors, especially in your hands
shortness of breath
** important to note:
Re: pheochromocytoma - According to Medscape (and this same info is on many other websites, too), lots of different medications can result in false elevations of metanephrines (http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/124059-workup#c7). For example:
tricyclic antidepressants
phenoxybenzamine
levodopa
beta blockers
labetalol
amphetamines
buspirone
methyldopa
chlorpromazine
overall, there are LOTS of prescription & OTC meds that can mess with your hormone levels, which could cause your odd symptoms that you’ve been plagued with. I think that having a sit down with your pharmacist is a good idea. Also, if you haven’t done so already, start keeping a daily journal of your symptoms. And you should especially note what you were doing just before you have these episodes of heart palpitations & such. If you don’t have one already, get one of those portable blood pressure cuffs and/or a pulse reader that you can use IN THE MOMENT when you are having those symptoms. Eventually, a pattern might emerge and that will help your team of doctors figure out what is going on.
I guess all you can do is keep ruling stuff out. I know it can be frustrating.
