And It's About Time There Was Some Support For Cushing's!
I am 30yrs old and for the last 9 years I have been waiting for answers to what is wrong with me.
When I was 21 I started gaining weight at a rapid speed. I was always small and do not have history of obesity in my family. It seemed like one day I was 125 pounds and I blinked and I was 160. I had missed periods extreme stomach pain and of course the weight gain. My sister had a friend who was recently diagnosed with PCOS and she suggested I get checked because syptoms were similar. I did - the specialist told me that I had PCOS. Then I developed strange pigmentation all over my torso,neck, inner thighs, and on my chest. It was not itchy. I did notice everytime I had something that had artificial sugar it would flare up. As the years went by I was gaining more and more weight. I would excercise and change the way I ate and would lose the weight for a little while but the minute I ate something as simple as bread or rice I would gain all the weight back. On my wedding day I weighed almost 200 pounds. I did'nt know what I was doing wrong.I cut all obvious carbs out of my diet and excercised like crazy.
I started noticing other things like I couldn't get pregnent, I was always thirsty, had frequent urination, headaches, nasuea, dizziness, fatigue, joint pain, sweeling of my legs and feet. brittle dry hair, hair falling out.
I thought that maybe this was the PCOS. I went to a doctor when I was living in California and I tested again for PCOS and was told that I didn't have it. I found this odd. I still was not able to have kids and I still had all the syptoms. I was put on clomid and quickly went off of it.
In this time I had been to several different doctors and they told me that I needed to exercise and have a proper diet (which I was already doing) I was getting extremly frustrated. I decided that this was the way I was and I would just live with it.
Then my sister came down to visit for Easter weekend and I had my hair up. She noticed a hump on the back of my neck and suggested that I have cushings. Not knowing what this was she explained it to me. It described my almost to a tee.
That following week I had my ACTH and blood cortisol done. ACTH came back at a 72 which is pretty high. The blood cortisol was normal so they did a 24 urine collection and my cortisol came back at 190 which was almost 4x what it was supposed to be. Now we were getting somewhere. I saw a endocrinologist who ordered that I have a five day 24hr urine collection, blood drawn on the 1st, 3rd and 5th day and to take dexamethsone for 4 days. After we get the results we will know better what we are dealing with.
Will keep you posted
Update September, 2006
I have an update on my condition. I have been diagnosed with cushings disease. In August of 2006 I went to the NIH and had a MRI which turned up a 6.5mm tumor on my pituitary. I just received a surgery date - Nov. 8th. I am very grateful for all of the nurses and doctors who have been working with me. The surgery will be performed by Dr. Oldfield who I hear is a very respectable surgeon. I am very excited.
Will keep you posted! Thank you for all of your support.
Chantal
