Addison's Disease: Major Symptoms, Causes, and Treatment

Addison's disease, also known as primary adrenal insufficiency, occurs when the adrenal or adrenal gland fails to produce the hormones aldosterone and cortisol, which is a hormone responsible for controlling stress and blood pressure and reducing inflammation. Thus, the lack of these hormones can lead to weakness, excessive craving for salt and generalized fatigue. Understand what cortisol is and what it does.

This disease can occur in people of any age, male or female, but it is more common in people between the ages of 30 and 40, and can be caused by many factors, such as prolonged use of medications, infections or autoimmune diseases, for example.

The treatment of Addison's disease is determined by the endocrinologist from the evaluation of symptoms and hormone dosage by means of a blood test and usually involves the supplementation of the hormone.

Main symptoms

There are symptoms of Addison's disease:

• Abdominal pain;
• Weakness;
• Fever;
• Nauroses;
• Weight loss;
• Excessive desire to eat salt, since a characteristic of this disease is the excessive loss of salt in the urine;
• Darkening of the skin, especially in the folds;
• Cutaneous hyperpigmentation, which are spots on the skin;
• Irritation;
• Postural hypotension, which corresponds to dizziness on standing up.

The destruction of the gland is quite slow, which can lead to confounding the symptoms of Addison's disease with other diseases and so unfortunately the diagnosis is usually made at more advanced stages of the disease.

The diagnosis of Addison's disease can be made based on the symptoms that the individual presents and confirmed by the dosage of the hormones produced by the adrenal and adrenal glands by means of a blood test.

Possible causes

Addison's disease can be caused by a variety of conditions, such as autoimmune diseases, in which the immune system attacks the body itself, interfering with the function of the adrenal glands, fungal, viral or bacterial infections such as blastomycosis, HIV, and tuberculosis, for example, in addition to neoplasms.

How is the treatment done?

The treatment for Addison's disease aims to meet the hormone deficiency through medications such as:

• Cortisol or hydrocortisone;
• Fludrocortisone;
• Prednisone;
• Prednisolone;
• Dexamethasone.

The treatment should be performed according to the medical recommendation and should be performed for a lifetime, since the disease has no cure.