...plus all animals make their own vitamin C 24/7, blah blah...
Ok it sounds like 40mg. Is a good dosage for you. What your describing is what your target is. At your proper dosage your discomfort should be just slight come and go type of mild pain. On a 1 to 10 scale a 2 is about right.
This give’s you the ability to see if your making progress. If your pain completely disappears after a couple of weeks at this level it means your body is starting to produce more of it’s own and you can start reducing the dosage. If the pain increases you wait a few days and see if it subsides if not a slight increase or time adjustment maybe needed. As you can see without the slight discomfort you would not have anything to gauge on. Without any pain your body could start coming up and you wouldn’t know it and then other problems could start brewing before you realize anything is going on.
Be patient at first you’ll have good days and bad days it’ll take a week or two to stabilize once you find the right dosage. Which I think you have.
Make sure your consistent on your times and time dosage. 40mg. Is a little on the high side for maintance dosage but I believe once you get your iron levels up you’ll start seeing improvements. This along with having your bug condo’s removed (tonsils). I believe within a year or shorter you’ll be back and better then before.
Yes, and I feel pretty darn good right now! (As long as I have access to some form of cortisol!!) My intention is to find the minimum dosage require to keep me almost symptom free, and it might even be easier than M. Prednisolone because I can be more granular (smaller doses) with hydrocortisone.
But the experience has taught me a great deal about inflammation and how cortisol controls and regulates inflammation. I probably mentioned that I tried putting my wedding band on. After 2 or 3 days, that finger was in extreme pain, while my other nine fingers were fine. It is apparent that any abnormality has a tendency to become inflamed after the body detects something wrong. Early on, my sore throat (tonsils) and sore left arm were the worst. (I tend to sleep mostly on my left side.)
Today, I don't have any part of my body that become inflamed more than any other on a too low cortisol dosage, which apparently means I am in pretty good shape! My body isn't detecting any abnormalities, and perhaps all the IV/C I began taking since October, 2011 has "cleaned out" any remaining toxins?
The pain of RA is horrible and debilitating (it is caused by general inflammation all over the body) and the fact that the pain and swelling is so easy to control amazes me. What amazes me even more is that the knowledge is being kept from rheumatologists! Knowledge that all that is required to completely control this pain is a simple hormone replacement.
And knowledge the psuedo-autoimmune disorders can begin with as little as 5 mg cortisol deficiency (1 mg M. predisolone equivalence)