Hi everyone... figured I'd give an update, a month later. So, it turns out that I DO have Lyme disease. Got my results back and I have Lyme. Finally, the past 6.5 years of illness make sense.
As for the Hydrocortisone wean, which is why I started this thread in the first place: I'm back down to 10mg of HC and actually feeling pretty good. I'm having the usual weaning symptoms (usual for me: increased heart rate the first few days after a drop, strained vision for a couple of days after the decrease, iratic bowels for a couple days after the drop, and always one or two days of extreme fatigue). But quite honestly, I feel WAY better this time around and we've been able to speed up the wean with no ill effects to this point. My doctor is abundantly cautious about this wean but even she is seeing that speeding it up hasn't produced any terrible effects so she's guiding me to make this quicker. It's working well so far, so I'm going with it.
It turns out part of the reason I wasn't feeling well earlier in the wean is that I was needing potassium quite badly and wasn't on any at all. As soon as I added it, I felt more human again and have continued to feel fairly normal ever since. Thank God.
My hair continues to fall out... I'm trying to keep the stress in check, because I know stress makes it worse. I'm just praying that once I'm off this drug, the loss will stop. PRAYING, I tell you. (Meantime,
@Ema, I'm taking your suggestion and going to look at wigs this week... just to make myself feel better about what happens if the loss doesn't stop.)
I won't begin Lyme treatment until I'm fully off HC, so hoping it's sooner rather than later so I can get started. Reason for this is, during this wean, my body will not accept ANY changes to my regimen whatsoever. I tried to change probiotics, my body freaked out... tried to add zinc, my body freaked out... even used a different shampoo than normal, and my body freaked out. Among other things. So, my practitioner has agreed that leaving everything alone during the rest of the wean is safest.
Does anyone know WHY this would be happening? I'm not sensitive to changes like this ever... this is incredibly bizarre, indeed.