And It's About Time There Was Some Support For Cushing's!
My name is Kathy, and I'm 36 years old. I have a very complicated life and am looking for support with all the changes I have been through in hoping that someone has suggestions.
I was diagnosed with Juvenille Diabetes at age 7, and found it very hard to grow up with the disease as a child. Most of the time following a diet was extremely difficult. I lived at home until I was 23 and have lived on own ever since. I lost my apartment once because of health problems, and have had to file bankruptcy because of no health insurance. But I've always managed to keep my spirits up in the hopes that there will be a cure one day.
In 1995, I was looking into having children with my boyfriend. When my doctor told me that it would almost be impossible due to the fact that my kidney's were only functioning at 50%. I have had too many doctors to even count to help control this disease. In 1996, I lose my sight in one eye and had to have emergency eye surgery. This was a wake up call for me and I started to turn my life around. Well, in 1997, I lost my sight in the other eye, and had to have surgery again. As years passed doctors kept an eye on my kidney function and it continued to deteriorate to the point where we started talking about transplants. In 1993 I was put on the waiting list for a transplant and was called once but my mother fell ill and I had to deny due to the fact I couldn't leaver her side. After she passed away, I put myself back on the list and had my transplant in 2004. I decided to kill two birds with one stone and had a kidney/pancreas done. The pancreas lasted about 1 year and now I am back to being on insulin.
My reason for writing is because of a story I read about a woman who had started to gain weight rapidly and had a hard time losing it. Most of the medication I am on I have to take for the rest of my life which includes the steroid, prednisone. I don't know when everything started to go wrong again, but I gained about 50-60 pound since my surgery and I noticed that I have features similar to the article I read about. I have what I call "flames" up and down on my abdomen, under my arms, on my breasts, and all around my waist. I'm sure most of these are from the weight gain, but they are very puffy almost and no doctor of mine seems to care about them to do anything.
I am gonig to have my doctor test me for cushing's disease because that's what it looks like to me. But I just wanted to know if anyone else who might have had a transplant is facing similar types of problems.
Any thoughts are welcome.
