I began by searching for info on ketotifen and its effects on cortisol,
and came across this.

http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-2222.1980.tb02132.x

http://www.erj.ersjournals.com/cgi/reprint/10/1/65.pdf

I know of the drug because an acquaintance with mast cell activation
disorder uses it to stave off anaphylaxis.  I wonder if ketotifen plus
low insulinogenic diet would yield more impressive results, since
insulin reduces available endogenous steroids and its delivery system?

In addition, my search yielded this, as good a case as any for someone
who's currently in need of any form of steroid treatment to keep
searching for less damaging interventions to at least minimize the risks.

http://adc.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/89/11/1055

Susan

If that were true about Steven, then it would be mighty difficult to
distinguish between the two of you.

I do not have asthma but sarcoidosis of the lungs.  One squirt of Flovent
daily provides some much needed symptomatic relief.

Susan's blanket statements against all use of corticosteroids are about as
logical as those of ironjustice's postings about iron consumption. When she
has spent some length of time walking in the shoes of all the people she
tells not to use corticosteroids then maybe she will have a true basis of
experience from which to speak. Until then she is just another Usenet
poster
stuck in a rut.    AW <<

You aren't a very astute reader, are you?

I have *never* made any recommendation to anyone to stop using their
steroids.  I have shared information provided in the endocrinology
research literature about how to minimize the adverse effects for those
who have no choice about using them.  These include dosing only in the
a.m. if possible; steroids in the a.m. suppress the HPA for 12 hours;
steroids at night suppress for 24 hours.  Every other day dosing is
recommended where possible, in order to preserve adrenal function.

The endocrinology literaturs says that patients on glucocorticoids "must
eat a high protein diet."

I urge anyone using steroids of any strength to read the literature, do
as much research as it takes to mimize their use as much as possible.
Anyone who keeps taking adrenal suppressive meds without a second
thought or careful monitoring is begging for trouble, and the doctors
are not monitoring adrenal function (as they're supposed to, according
to the endo lit), nor observing even the most blatant signs of it.

I don't know what kind of shoes *you're in*, but I have iatrogenic
Cushing's disease, both a large pituitary tumor and a hyperplastic
adrenal gland that will likely both have to come out. Cure rate looks to
be about 56%, particularly after longstanding disease and large tumor.
This surgery performed by passing an endoscope through the sphenoid
sinus and drilling into the center of the skull. I guess removing the
adrenal will be a walk in the park, by comparison.  I have no choice but
to consider their removal because Cushing's will continue to destroy my
health and stamina, my vision, balance and ability to live anything like
a normal life.

I got this problem by obediently following the instructions of my
university based practitioners for decades during which they ignored all
the signs and symptoms of my adrenal crises, Cushing's syndrome and even
when I became immune compromised and disabled, a condition I've been in
since 1991.  They gave me none of the advice I've found in the
endocrinology literature, three endocrinologists failed to diagnose it,
too, even after labs showed adrenal crisis, PCOS without insulin
resistance, weight gain on a bird's diet, labile hypertension and
diabetes, again, without IR.

Perhaps you find ignorance is bliss; I'll never just take my medicine
unquestiongily again.

Don't ever try to stack your suffering up against someone else's; it's
whiny and cowardly.

Susan

Judy:
It could be that you just have damaged tissue, but consider this.
http://www.phageinternational.com/doc/tbsordie.pdf

After looking at the problem the way a metallurgist looks at it, mass
balances, energy balances,
etc.  it looks like we have a mat of organisms with strata of
complementary metabolic process organized
to eat us as if we were an iron pipe. They are mostly hyland, that is
clear, and the
goo the "wild type organisms" make confound the ordinary gram staining
process that
standard bacterial identification and taxonomy is based on.
If you imaged the baceria using  SYTO live/ dead stain such as 11 or
13, there is an awful lot
there that never shows up in cultures. The first time I saw it my hair
stood on end.

No metagenomics have ever been done on CS mucus vs heathy mucus, but
it I posted a paper here
that stated that no gram negative rods were found in healthy sinuses.
But I would be willing to bet that if you could go to UM and have them
SEM a biopsy for you that
your "inflammed damaged tissue" is covered with a biofilm that is
inflamming the tissue in the process of
causing the tissue to weep the blood that it lives on.
Getting one of these biofilms requires nothing more than that the
protective lining of the sinuses be compromised by a
respiratory virus. . The bacteria in the biofilm appear
to spread from the adenoids, and they bullseye as if they spread a
step further each time you get the flu.
A guy that worked for the CDC proved that in 1980 or so. In fact the
way that St Jude's children's creates it's
mouse model for CS is to expose the mice to the flu and then staph.
Most ENTs are not microscope jocks, nor are they aware that most of
the bacteria present will not show up,
nor are they aware of the lousy sensitivity of the tests they use to
detect bacteria. Tests invented 80 years ago.
They don't find anything in the goo because they don't use any of the
tools invented in this century!!!!!

I expect some real breakthroughs when this changes, but I have also
seen real breakthough information like
that Staph produces an enzyme that destroys cystic fibrosis
transmembrane conductance factor vanish without
a ripple.

So I guess it is up to us to keep the info from vanishing.