My Diagnosis: Day 2

Day 2:
I didn't get much sleep that night. I ended up trying to distract myself playing Mario Kart on my 3DS. Which I'm really good at by the way. Minor detail. I was already bracing myself (not really) to be diagnosed with Addison's Disease but I had no clue how much danger I would have been in had I not come to the hospital. You might be wondering how my sister and I caught on and the doctors hadn't. First of all, my sister is a doctor herself and also because we immediately went to the worst case scenario upon searching up "low sodium, high potassium condition". We then saw a list of symptoms with most of them being really generic but one was very striking. The hyper/hypo pigmentation present in those who present with Addison's. Generally, caucasians over the age of 30 are diagnosed with Addison's and because my siblings used to be quite light and then darkened with age, I thought my own pigment change was just a natural change. However, it wasn't. My melanin was so strong at one point, I distinctly remember someone asking me about how my skin is so dark (it was a compliment) and I responded, "Oh, my dad is darker." to which they quickly rebutted saying "darker than you? is that possible?". Despite this, I never realised how dark I had been becoming.

I also had a black tongue, which I developed 2 months prior to my diagnosis. I was aware of it but I thought it was a bacterial problem and I would just brush it intensely thinking it would eventually go away. These features of pigmentation are very very important signs of Addison's and until you actually mention it to a doctor, they won't pick up on it as they are unlikely to know about pigment changes in This is especially true in darker skin tones as you can't tell we have tanned. So, all in all, I hadn't told the doctors about this "minor" detail and as a result they were fussing about with my blood test unable to figure out what the problem was. They also weighed me and I realised I had lost about 12kg in 2 months.

Day 2 in the hospital was pretty boring overall. Shoddy wifi too. I still wasn't able to get up and stand. In fact, I felt dizzier than the day before. And I was also basically quarantined and unable to leave the room because I would pass my flu around. Any visitors had to wear these masks that just made them look like they were going to experiment on me. I was also being moved from ward to ward. My family struggled the most with this as they didn't know where to go most of the time.

Still bed-ridden and frustrated, I wasted most of the day away with doctors coming back and forth to take blood tests and my mum/sister bringing me food occasionally which I couldn't even bring myself to eat properly. My workplace on the other hand were doing something very 'interesting' in the background... but that's for another day.

For anyone interested in the science behind the hyper-pigmentation (darkening), it's because my adrenal glands weren't releasing cortisol when signalled by ACTH. My brain thinking there aren't enough signals, releases more and more to no avail. A side product of ACTH is melanin and as a result, I gained a lot of it. Mostly on my face, knees/elbows, palms and tongue.

Day 2 Symptoms:
- dizziness
- feeling of wanting to vomit
- unable to eat
- headache, but a lot less
- unable to stand
- hyper-pigmentation (not really a symptom, but very significant)
- weight loss (again not a sudden symptom, just something we discovered)
- hypo-pigmentation (vitiligo on my feet)