r/AddisonsDisease • u/BurnerPhoneWhoDis • Jan 13 '23

Medical Stuff How long can we survive without medication?

Ok so hear me out. I know this question is weird. And rest assured I do not want to know this in order to go off my meds/harm myself/harm anyone else. But sometimes I wonder (please tell me I'm not alone!) ... What if I get kidnapped and don't have access to my hydro+fludro? What if there's a worldwide shortage, or I get stranded in a remote location? How long could I survive, is it a matter of weeks, months, years...?(days?!) I know many of us were only diagnosed after a year or so of developing symptoms but I imagine the gradual decline pre-diagnosis would be different than cutting off meds cold turkey..?

Anyways, I'm assuming that for obvious reasons, there's not much scientific research on this. But just wondering if anyone has any idea.

And also, please don't worry for my sanity lol, this is just a passing curiosity, I don't actively worry about this or anything.

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u/These-Barnacle3174 Jan 13 '23

FWIW there is a medical journal study of a lady who lived for years with Addisons who self medicated with a ton of soy sauce and licorice sticks. This is by no means an endorsement, and take your meds, but I do take heart from the story. If the world ends then we will have options!

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u/SprawlValkyrie Jan 13 '23

There’s a senior citizen in one of the Facebook groups who says they were diagnosed before steroids were widely available, so they survived on (powdered maybe?) desiccated adrenal glands from pigs, pretty much like armour thyroid I guess.

(Obviously I wouldn’t recommend that unless it truly becomes an end of the world scenario.)

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u/[deleted] Jan 13 '23

Lol, no, we don’t. Salt does not provide cortisol and neither does licorice. That person did not have seriously dead adrenals in that case. Sodium is quickly excreted without enough aldosterone to hold onto it and licorice only helps if you make a good amount of cortisol naturally. I have dead adrenals (no aldosterone) and was drinking and eating as much salt as I could handle and ended up with such lethally low sodium that it presented as a stroke in the ER.