BIG MISTAKE - Never go back to steroids!

Hey all,

Thought I would do a quick update here. So if you read my the last blog post I did a year ago, you can see that I caved in and went back to the steroids! Basically I was really struggling and wanted some relief. And I wanted to see what happened if I tried only really low doses of prednisone.. But boy, was that a huge mistake...!

Don't do it, do let the doctors talk you into going back to the steroids. I was on low doses of prednisone for about 6 months, plus using hydrocortisone here and there and it f'ed me up big time... I stopped the low dose steroids around July 2017 because I just kept getting worse and worse. Way worse then when I was 3 years into my first withdraw. So I knew steroids is not the answer and never will be the answer...

So I stopped the steroids (again!) July 2017. I knew I needed to go through withdraw again, so I moved to a tropical environment in Medellin, Colombia for 5 months because I know I do better where there is sun and humidity. And boy, did I go through total withdraw again. The oozing started again, then bright red skin, the intense flaking, the pain! Oh man fuck steroids...

Again it took months before my skin started showing signs of healing again. Around December things stated to improve for me again and I moved back to my parents house in Seattle. This is 6 months after stopping the low dose steroids. I then decided to take a trip to Miami Florida where there is plenty of sun and salt water. I wanted to try swimming in the ocean because I have been doing epsom salts baths at home and it seemed to help quite a bit. You have to make sure they are pure epsom salts and not mixed with any fragrance or anything. Also rinsing off with cold water helps a bunch too.

And boy, the salt water and sun here in Miami is freaking amazing! It has practically cleared me. My skin is no longer bright red and I feel the best I have in 5 years. It took about 5 swims and laying in the sun for an hour or two. The first swim freaking burns like hell... but after that it's bearable the next times.

I was looking at myself in the mirror the other day and couldn't believe this was my body. Not a scratch, with regular tone skin and no flaking. And even started crying and thanking god for this temporary relief.  I could literally feel the salt water burning the eczema out, and my lymph nodes getting smaller and less swollen. My energy returned, I felt alive again! So I think I need to live on the ocean here in the tropics somewhere. As the salt water/ ocean is a miracle worker.

I will try to post pictures here soon.

Good luck all, and swim in the Ocean!

Steroid Corticosteroid Potency Explanation!

Disclaimer - I am not a doctor... just a guy who has done some online research and telling you my story.

I want to update you guys with where I am at now. TSW has been hell, my last 3 years using no steroids was the hardest time of my life. But I do not regret the suffering one bit. I learned a lot from it and came more in touch with my body then ever before. The Summer of 2017 was actually not that bad, as long as I was getting sunlight. But once Winter hit around November I was in bad shape again. As mentioned in my last post. And as a result I encountered the devil (steroids) again! But after doing some research I decided micro dosing on the devil might be an option. Let me explain.

I decided to do some research on exactly how much steroids I was on, compared to how much your body should naturally produce. What I ended up finding is that a normal health body should produce 40 mg a day or more of hydrocortisone. Note hydrocortisone is different then pednisone. Prednisone is 4 time stronger then hydrocrotisone and there are many other more potent versions of the steroid/ hormone as you can see on this corticosteroid calculator http://clincalc.com/corticosteroids/.

According to this article some people produce up to 200mg a day hydrocortisone. Now remember, hydrocortisone is the same hormone as the stress reducing cortisol hormone our bodies naturally produces to fight inflammation, but hydrocortisone is the synthetically man made version used for medication . And it is said, taking over 40mg of a day of hydrocortisone can result in damage to the adrenal glands. As stated in this quote from this site: https://stopthethyroidmadness.com/adrenal-info/faq


"How much cortisol does the body normally produce? In doctor Peatfield’s book, he says “The natural output of hydrocortisone is actually variable and may be as much as 200 mg. daily under stress and 40 – 60 mg. in a normal resting state. Obviously then, a dose significantly greater than 40 mg. daily will tend to take over the adrenal production of cortisone, and the adrenals could shut down completely. It must be said at once, so long as this suppression doesn’t last too long, the adrenals will pick themselves up again, and restart producing the necessary cortisone for themselves as before.”  Thyroid patients who need ACE or HC doesn’t normally get that high, though."

Ok. This is important! Going over 40mg a day can result in damage to the adrenals. And in theory, you should not take more then 10mg hydrocortisone a day to be safe.

So lets set the daily limit to 10mg hydrocortisone a day just to be on the super safe side...

So how much each steroid should last you if you stayed on the super safe side of 10mg of hydrocortisone a day? Lets do the math!

Here is a corticosteroid calculator that is really helpful and everyone should know about! http://clincalc.com/corticosteroids/

• 1 20 mg pill of prednisone
• 1 mg prednisone = 4mg hydrocortisone
• So 20mg prednisone = 80 mg of hydrocortisone. 
• 80mg / 10mg daily safety limit = 8
• One 20mg pill should last you 8 days if you follow the safety limit.
• Note the doctor prescribed me 60mg per day of prednisone! Which is ludicrous because that 60mg is like 1 month of steroids if you follow my safety limit...

• 1% hydrocortisone cream - 1 tube 28 grams/ 1oz 
• 1% hydrocortisone cream means 10mg  hydrocortisone per gram of cream.
• It has a 12hr half life. = .5 day half life.
• So one tube has 280 mg of hydrocortisone.
• 280 / 10 mg / day = 28 days * .5 day half life =  14 days. 
• 1 Tube should last you 14 days if you follow the safety limit

• .1% triamcinalone - 1 tube 28 grams/ 1oz
• .1% means it contains 1mg hydrocortisone per gram of cream
• Triamcinalone has a 24 hour half life = 1 day half life
• 1mg triamcinalone = 5mg of hydrocortisone
• 1 tube 28 grams/ 1oz of .1% triamcinalone cream = 28 mg triamcinalone * 5 = 140 mg of hydrocortisone
• 140 / 10mg / day = 14
• 1 tube should last you 14 days

• .1% triamcinalone - 1 Jar 454 grams
• .1% means it contains 1mg hydrocortisone per gram of cream
• Triamcinalone has a 24 hour half life = 1 day half life
• 1mg triamcinalone = 5mg of hydrocortisone
• 1 jar contains 454 mg triamcinalone
• 454 mg triamcinalone * 5 = 2270 mg hydrocortisone / 10mg/ day = 228 days
•  1 jar should last you 7 months and 16 days

• betamethasone .1% (super potent!) - 1 small tube 15 grams 
• 1mg betamethasone = 25mg hydrocortisone
• betamethasone has a 4 day half life
• 1 small tube contains 15mg betamethasone
• 15mg betamethasone * 25mg hydrocortisone = 375 mg of hydrocortisone in a tube.
• 375mg / 10mg / day  = 37.5 * 4 day half life = 150 days
• 1 small tube of betamethasone should last you 5 months...

Now, my hypothesis is this. Cortisol is a natural hormone. And I have come to the realization that my body might be damaged. My adrenal glads simply do not produce enough cortisol resulting in inflammation and damage to the body. So for the winter months I have been taking 2.5mg a day of prednisone to keep me from going crazy. This is the "safe" threshold of what I described up above. And this has helped tremendously, and the side effects have been minimal so far. My daily life has returned to normal. I know I might be damaging my adrenals even more and this has me a little scared... But really 2.5mg is very little.  So for now it's a decision I chose to go. Eventually when the Sun returns, I want to try and cut the devil off totally again. But micro dosing has ended my winter depression and I am doing really well. I will not let myself go over 2.5mg a day and if anything I want to switch to 2.5mg every other day starting in the spring, then stopping in the summer.

Thanks for reading,

Happy Healing to you all!

Coming back from hell :) yeah

Almost 11 months in and hitting a major healing period, to where there is almost no red skin! And I haven’t used any moisturizer or cream what so ever on my skin for the last 2 months. It is still a little dry and red in places but nothing compared to 2 months in. I still think I might get another flare, but I am hoping for the best!

Things that seem to have helped in order:
1. Time.
2. Stopping all work and stress related activities to take time and let the body heal.
3. Time
4. Realization that my spirit has been badly damaged and there is a greater God that can guide you through this.
5. Time
6. Marijuana - especially heavy doses of editable once a week (100mg THC). Gives a knew perception on the damage done and how to heal. 
7.Time
8.No other Drugs - The last couple months I have not use any drug or cream or pill whatsoever. I believed this helped greatly, even though at times I suffered greatly. I would use only Marijuana to calm me down.
9. Acupuncture: I have been smoking Marijuana and going to get acupuncture every other day. For some reason this seems to be really helpful. It feels like the inflammation just drains from the body after a 1hr acupuncture session. And my sleep has returned greatly which is the biggest help of all.

10. Support and great understanding from loves one. The trip through hell is not easy to say the least…

Medical Marijuana

This is a sketchy topic to discuss but I feel the need to share my experience so far. Please don’t view me as a "pot head" because I am far from it.  I personally think there is something amazing about marijuana. I believe it truly is a miracle plant. And here is why. 

First of all, do a YouTube search, "Marijuana cures" and you will be bombarded with people stories of how cannabis has cured all sorts of diseases, especially cancer. It’s a tragedy that or government is making research so hard because it is illegal. I think the drug companies in power are stopping research from being done because the legalization of marijuana would cripple their business. For sure. 

Anyways, let’s talk about my experience. I was introduced to cannabis when my younger brother offered me a pot cookie he got from his friend. With my knowlege of canabis now, there was probably around 50 to 100 mg of THC in that cookie. A normal dose is 10mg. This was 4 months ago and I would try anything to relive the pain. So I ate it. Not much happened in the first 30 min - so with the limited knowledge about editable I decided to eat more... and 15 min later I was stoned! I mean really stoned. I was not expecting the body high that I got. I couldn't talk or even think clearly. And to be honest I was freaking out. I was Paranoid! And now looking back I know exactly why I felt Paranoid. 

Here is what I thing marijuana does. When ingesting marijuana your body processes it way different then smoking it. It converts the THC to other compounds that induce a stronger high, and the high can be 4 times stronger the smoking it. But it is this high where the healing can begin. Let me explain...

Besides taking pain away (which it does greatly), I think marijuana is literally a time machine for your mind. Yeah now I sound crazy haha. For me personally (each person is different) when I eat a pot cookie alone (alone is different than with people around, trust me) I start analyzing my life. I go back and look at my childhood experiences and memories and see how they made me the person I am today. It’s like the marijuana slows down your brain frequency and like tuning into a different channel, you tune into a different perspectives on your life. You can make connections you wouldn’t normally notice. Things like houses, people, places all have a history and feeling associated with them. When I had the cookie at my parents house I could literally hear voices from the past and memories would flash before my eyes. At certain times I wanted to cry. Not until you eat the marijuana you can start picking up those frequencies. For me, the first couple times eating the cookies I felt anxious and afraid. This is because my subconcious was opening up and exposing so much information to me that I didn’t know how to handle it. My brain and emotions were overloaded.

It is meditation on these profound thoughts and truths that enable the healing. You can clearly see where and why the sickness is occurring. Where you went wrong. I can tell that my body will take a long time to recover but I can also see the path. I can see how bad I screwed by body up :( I wrote the other day while high this: "The creams made my skin look healthy but my truth was burried. The sickness and longing my spirit would weep through the skin. When I was two months in and looked like hell. That what my spirit looked like underneath my skin-- puke, that is so disgusting, why i would do that too myself."

It is a clear understanding like this that you begin to fully understand. You begin to understand who you are and how we are so tightly intertwined with nature and the energies around us. The artificial creams blocked that perspective and made me sick.

I feel the inflamed skin cells moving up and out of my body now. It is a very very slow process. But I see it and understand it now. Give me another year and I will be a totally renewed person.

 Let me note I sometimes smoke it now but it gives me bad asthma sometimes, so I will continue to eat it. Smoking it is way lighter on a high. Every person experienced eating marijuana/ editable different. And if the edible has butter in it, the high will be stronger because of the way it fuses with the fat proteins. But for me it seems to be helping. What I have been doing is like have 2 days out of the week to "medicate” myself, then take a couple days to analyze my experience and how my body is changing. 

Marijana also exposed to me how f'd up our society is. Living in corporate America you can see how businesses and cooperations choose profits over the well being of others. Not all businesses are bad but there is a lot of greed going around these days. It will be this greed that tests America to its limit, and if the people are not carfull and fight for their freedoms it could overtake the world. 

Anyways, leave any comments or questions below!

Also watch this video (ignore the first min or so where they talk about the bodies haha), there is a place in this video where Joe Rogan perfectly describes the power of editable!  http://youtu.be/TuH5We_WEQo