And It's About Time There Was Some Support For Cushing's!
Between January and June of last year, 2005, I gained 35lb and my body seemed to be swollen all over...especially the jowl, neck, shoulder and upper chest areas. 7 doctors kept diagnosing panic attacks...but even though I was stressed...not panicked!!! They kept giving me ativan to calm me down...but of course it did not help my symptoms.
Finally, in October, a new doctor mentioned Cushings in passing...I think she must have recognized something. All regular bloodwork came back normal dispite a previous abnormal Thyroid level...and my Cholesteral was high. I have not been back because a previous doctor was trying to treat me for a serious mental illness that he had diagnosed was the problem behind this.
The depression could be worse..but he wouldn't listen to me at all, and told me that my physical symptoms were not present, only a figment of my imagination ...and hospitalized me and put me on anipsychotics which I had an adverse reaction to. He also took me off prednisone cold turkey. He had put me on it 8 weeks before for allergies that he said were causing the swelling in my face and neck. He actually told me that there was nothing physically wrong with me...and both he and the hospital nurses denied that I was swollen, or that the swelling went up and down very rapidly sometimes. My kids, friends, and hospital room mate could see it, but they all said that it did not exist.
Needless to say, I walked out as soon as I could. The way I was treated by this doctor, and nurses in hospital terrified me and I was scared to tell anyone that I was sick anymore.
But of course the symptoms have not gone away...I just thought I had to live (or die) with them. Now I can go back and my journey back to health and looking and feeling normal again can begin. And hopefully my brain will come out of the fog.
