For any number of reasons, we feel ill but decide that it’s something innocuous. It might be that tickle in the back of your throat, causing those innocent little coughs that make people think you are trying to get their attention. It could be the fact that you wipe your nose three times in five minutes all day long. Perhaps it’s the fact that you’re sweating in the room where everyone else is wearing a sweater or a shawl, and you attribute it to your thick Scandinavian blood.
For most of us, these might be very minor ailments that our bodies deal with, without our help or knowledge. But for some, these could be the warning signs of something serious… like a flare up of Addison’s disease.
For Peter Thornton, the executive behind DermaTuff Thin Skin Protective Wear, something that seemed harmless turned out to be quite serious. In October 2009, Mr. Thornton was preparing for the long drive home from a conference when he started to feel a bit off.
He dismissed this as the beginnings of a cold.
His symptoms escalated quickly as he drove home. He was cold to the point of shivering, despite turning the car’s heater up to max. He felt uncontrollably thirsty as well. By the time he arrived home, his delirium was so intense that he struggled to get in the door, up the stairs, and into bed.
It didn’t dawn on him until the next morning that he was experiencing a flare up of his Addison’s disease caused by a minor viral infection.
His Addison’s was the unfortunate result of medicine he took for several decades to treat something diagnosed as asthma. The cortisone was meant to treat the asthma, but it ended up shutting down his adrenal glands entirely, making it easy for him to develop Addison’s.
Mr. Thornton mega-dosed his cortisone the next morning and was feeling relatively normal within just a few hours. He learned that Addison’s triggers, like with many other diseases, can lurk, hidden away, waiting to pounce.
Don’t ignore Peter Thornton’s lessons.
