Spreading joy, well-being and awareness! This festive season, take a few minutes to learn about a rare and life-threatening condition: adrenal insufficiency, including Addison's disease. Your awareness could help save a life. What are Addison's disease and adrenal insufficiency? Addison’s disease (AD) is a rare endocrine condition (affecting hormones), and one of 3 types of adrenal insufficiency affecting 1:10,000 people, of all ages and genders. With these conditions, the adrenal glands, which sit just above the kidneys, are unable to produce enough life-essential hormones: cortisol, aldosterone and DHEA. As a result, the body becomes severely unwell with symptoms like nausea and abdominal pain, a low appetite, lightheadedness and brain fog, extreme weakness and fatigue preventing 'normal living' and changes in skin colour; skin can become darker or look tanned. Untreated, AD and adrenal insufficiency lead to a life-threatening emergency called an Adrenal Crisis. Your Adrenal Glands Sit on top of the kidneys and produce life essential hormones; cortisol, aldosterone and DHEA. Adrenal Crisis A life-threatening emergency due to lack of cortisol, requiring a time-critical emergency injection of hydrocortisone Patients Healthcare Professionals Employers Why is it important to know? People with Addison's disease and adrenal insufficiency are 'steroid-dependent' and must take steroid medication two or three times a day, at set times, to replace the hormones they are not producing. Our bodies need more cortisol when we are physically or severely emotionally stressed, e.g. when we are ill or injured, or have a stressful event. If the cortisol needs of the body are not met, the person with adrenal insufficiency, whether the primary (Addison's), secondary or tertiary type, is at risk of a life-threatening adrenal crisis. Removing the risk of an adrenal crisis is currently impossible as the body's need for more cortisol can't be accurately predicted and is very individual to both person and situation. On average, 8% of people with adrenal insufficiency will have an adrenal crisis yearly. 1 in 200 adrenal crisis are fatal. Every death is preventable. Who are we? The Addison's Disease Self-Help Group (ADSHG) is a small UK charity, founded over 40 years ago, for people with Addison's disease and adrenal insufficiency, and the healthcare professionals supporting them. We offer services to: Support: Providing resources and building a community that helps people self-manage their AD and AI and improve their quality of life. Connect: Making it possible for the voice of people with AD and AI to influence, inform and improve how the healthcare service delivers their care. Advance: Funding, contributing to and promoting the development of innovations and research to improve quality of life. Our goal is to help people Be Aware, Be Prepared and Be Understood, and our vision is: What Difference do we make? Raise Awareness to Save Lives During 2025 we have offered free Awareness Training to 937 UK Paramedics, EMTs and paramedic students. We connect to all healthcare disciplines, from GPs, nurses, endocrinologists, dentists and pharmacists, to raise awareness and offer clinically reviewed treatment and management information. We work to support a host of settings, such as schools, residential care homes, GP surgeries, and A&E departments, in recognising and understanding adrenal insufficiency. Create 'expert patients' Our free access website is a valuable and searchable resource for information on all aspects of daily life with Addison's and adrenal insufficiency. Our online member forum is a safe space to share lived experiences and learn from each other. Through our updated and clinically reviewed publications, newsletters and twice-yearly magazine, we reassure, encourage, inform, update, and motivate our members, taking them on a journey from newly diagnosed to 'expert patient' (where they understand their low cortisol symptoms and can act quickly to prevent adrenal crisis). Promote & fund research We attend medical conferences, giving our members a voice in the medical endocrinology community and raising the profile of Addison's disease as a rare condition. We engage and support healthcare professionals carrying out research in the field of endocrinology. We are actively engaged in research and projects that impact patient safety and quality of life, particularly around facilitating easier and safer emergency hydrocortisone injections. 2025 Impact Summary What can you do to help? Become a Member You don't need to have Addison's disease or adrenal insufficiency to become a member...just the motivation to improve the safety and quality of life of those that do.(£33/year). Join the ADSHG Fundraise Help us support our community and the healthcare disciplines and other professionals, such as teachers, and employers, who need to understand our rare condition to save lives. Fundraise for the ADSHG Volunteer If you have time to spare and skills to offer, please get in touch with us to explore if you can help us on our mission to save lives. Volunteer for the ADSHG AND...please share our digital Christmas card as far and wide as you can, to spread awareness.... Support the ADSHG this Christmas Buy a Bauble This festive season, you can bring joy and hope by adding a sparkling bauble to our virtual charity tree! Every donation helps the Addison’s Disease Self-Help Group support people living with Addison’s disease and adrenal insufficiency. 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