What is Morbus Addison?

What is Morbus Addison?
It is a very rare disease, that is invisable and often not easy for a doctor to find, as many of the symptoms are commend with many other diseases.

 

The disease can be dangerous, as there is something called a Addison Crises/Coma if getting low on cortison in the body (or just by stress) The bloodpreasure will fall and its a matter of getting help ASAP.
Morbus Addison comes in two types. Primary and Secondary.

Common to both types, the treatment regimen consisting of hydrocortisone in pill form. Pills that we can not live without.
There currently serves about 600 in Denmark with primary addison and there is added abour 60 new primary's each year. There are approximately 2500-3000 secondary, as secondary addison can be due to many reasons.

One of the more famous addison patients, was John F. Kennedy and his sister Eunice, who both suffered from Addison.


 
I will try to write it as simple and understandable as possible, howcome there is a difference between primary and secondary following:
Primary Addison:
Is if the adrenal gland is broken and no longer produces adrenal hormone ... Here in my house, we call this.. Nobody is home...
If you have primary addison, you may be predisposed to other autoimmune diseases, such as diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, B12 deficiency ect.

Secondary Addison:
Is if the problem is in the pituitary or hypothalamus and there is no contact to tell the adrenal glands that they must produce the hormone. In this case, you do not even make ACTH and is not a corticosteroid. At our home this version is called. The phone doesnt ring (so even kids understand it).

I rather not go into to many detail about the disease itself, because I know most of you that gets to read this blog, you will already know a lot about addison, or you can check my link to wiki.. They tell it better than I can, so I rather stick to telling you about how I / we deal with the daily life of Addison disease.
I will add a few more links, but it will mostly be to danish sites...

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