By:  Katherine White   Friday, 3. October 2003

In an emergency, anyone with Addison’s disease can experience symptoms of extreme weakness, a serious drop in blood pressure and mental confusion.  This means they need extra steroid medication immediately, and may need an emergency injection. 

As a general rule, an Addisonian should give themselves an emergency injection of 100mg hydrocortisone sodium (Efcortesol or Solu-Cortef) if they vomit more than once.

When to give an emergency injection

• This is a question of judgement, depending on how advanced your crisis symptoms are and, from past experience, how quickly your condition can deteriorate.

• As a general rule, an Addisonian should give themselves an emergency injection of 100mg hydrocortisone sodium (Efcortesol or Solu-Cortef) if they vomit more than once.

• Do not wait until you are too weak and confused to give the injection yourself.  Keep ahead of your illness.

• If you are able to swallow medication, an injection may not be necessary.  If you vomit once, swallow at least 20mg hydrocortisone immediately. Some people need to swallow 40 or 60mg hydrocortisone to control severe nausea and avoid a crisis. 

• For hydrocortisone tablets to be fully absorbed, you need to keep them down for 30 minutes.

• If you are unable to keep hydrocortisone down for 30 minutes you will need an emergency injection as soon as possible.

• If you are experiencing a rapid deterioration in your condition, e.g. severe physical shock, you will need an emergency injection as soon as possible.

• If you are seriously injured, you may need an injection of 100mg hydrocortisone sodium to stabilise your blood pressure, before vomiting occurs.

• Once you have given yourself the injection, seek immediate medical help. The injection kit is intended to stabilise your condition while you wait for medical help, not as a replacement for medical care. 

• We suggest you either request a house call from your GP, call an ambulance, or make your own way to a hospital Accident and Emergency Department.  You may need intravenous saline to stabilise your condition and will benefit from medical monitoring.

How to give an emergency injection

Efcortesol® injection illustrated instructions (Web Page)... Efcortesol® injection illustrated instructions (PDF Page)...
Solu-Cortef® injection illustrated instructions (Web Page)... Solu-Cortef® injection illustrated instructions (PDF Page)...
Rough guide to emergency injection
Read the manual section on:	Crisis management		(65kbytes)
	In order to read the PDF file, you need to have Adobe® Acrobat® Reader installed in your computer. You can download the latest Acrobat® Reader for free from Adobe's website.
Read the complete manual:	Addison's Disease Owner’s Manual

 Previous Page    1   2   3   4   5    Next Page