Hello Loulou, its good to hear from you again.

I am sorry to hear that your have caught Covid-19.  As far as I know you don't take steroids (cortisol and hydrocortisone are steroids) to treat it, at least not at home. I think it is sometimes given to people who have severe lung damage because of Covid- 19 in a hospital setting and not at home. Also it would need to be prescribed by a doctor in each individual case. If you are confused about taking them then please do try to contact the doctor that prescribed them or talk with your GP again. 

There is treatment called antiviral that some people with health conditions, that could make them very sick, if they had Covid 19 should take. Not everyone needs to take them. This list of people includes those with some types of cancer, but not all types.  You can read more about this treatment here . People who do need to take this treatment will be contacted by their hospital team or GP about taking it. If you have not been told to take them then you need to ask your GP or call the NHS on telephone number 111 to find out.

I am afraid that we are unable to tell you if you need to take any treatment. It is a possibility that you do not need to take any.  But if you become unwell you should always seek medical advice. 

Please get back to us if you need any more information or support.  You may find it helpful to talk things through with one of the nurses on our helpline.  The number to call is Freephone 0808 800 4040 and the lines are open from 9am till 5pm Monday to Friday.

Take care,

Caroline

Hi Caroline. Thankyou for getting back to me. 

My g p did mention antiviral if I was poorly . So far it's the cough and tiredness so should be OK. I would certainly contact someone if I got worse.

I was more confused by the 'sick day' rules I was told about as I understood, and I might be wrong??, that conditions like , viruses, flu, diahorhea etc and I'm guessing covid falls in this category, may potentially cause my adrenal glad to go into stress and that taking hydrocortisone may prevent this. Is there any documents I could download that gves guidance for 'sick day' rules? I could pass this to g.p too.

Many thanks for any help you can give. I really appreciate it

Hello again Loulou and thanks for getting back to us, 

I'm afraid I haven't been able to find sick day rules for people who have had one adrenal gland removed a decade ago and I don't know if you need to take steroids now. This is something that you need to check out with a doctor. 

You mentioned having some out of date steroids,  I am not sure who prescribed them. If the hospital specialist gave them to you and wanted you to take them regularly, even intermittently, they would usually have written to the GP to ask them to arrange a repeat prescription. So it could be an idea to ask the GP to look back in your records to see what the specialist said when you were discharged from hospital based care.  

From what I can tell having a quick read up, I think sometimes people who have had a steroid producing adrenocortical cancer (ACC) removed might need to have steroid replacement to begin with, but only for a while until the remaining adrenal is working ok again. This is because too many steroids in the system can shut down the hormones from another gland, the pituitary, which tell both adrenals to make steroids, so the remaining adrenal gland might not be working well enough to compensate immediately. It can take a while for the pituitary to crank up along with the other adrenal gland and until it does, additional steroids may be needed to cover illness. I found a Q&A on a US website about this topic at the link below, 

csrf.net/.../ 

This Q&A goes on to say that the doctors can work out how well a single adrenal gland is working. I am not sure if you can remember this being done (this could be in your records) but I think it might be something to ask your GP about. 

I am sorry I can't tell you anymore, but I hope you can get this sorted out with your GPs help. Give us a call if you want to talk anything over, the number is Freephone 0808 800 4040 and we are here weekdays, 9-5.

All the best

Julia

Thanks so much for the up date. I'll have a chat with my g p.

Thanks again for taking the time to get back to me