And It's About Time There Was Some Support For Cushing's!
About 6 years ago a doctor told me I had high blood pressure, and anxiety and put me on bp meds, Xanax, and Prozac. I didn't think I needed the last two and told him so and he raised the dosages, I found another doctor. She took me off the xanax ( I was losing weight and crying all the time) and increased the Prozac to help with withdraws, changed my bp (bp out of control). I did great and doc left that office, yup.
After "other" doc in same office kept increasing Prozac I got frustrated because of other "symptoms" they wouldn't investigate and went looking for doc who left, I liked her and how she seemed to really focus on my bp problems and such. I started gaining weight and my attitude started changing, I was hateful, snapping, crying, forceful (u name it) to the point my job was suffering and in danger. A friend helped me to get off the Prozac because everytime I mentioned weaning off the Prozac the doc wanted to INCREASE it.
I'm 42 years old was on over 12 meds a day, 2x a day !!! I kept gaining weight and it being your body YOU know if sonething is wrong and I kept telling the doc something was wrong. She wouldn't hear of me losing weight though, too bad for bp, huh ??? NO diets, she was firm.
Other things started popping up, like diabetes type 2, fat face with a double chin, a thicker neck, skinny arms & legs ?, NO bras would fit even sport bras, bad depression, swelling all over body, tightness (water retention), shaving my face of horrid thick white fuzzy hair, no sex drive or interest, very tired and napping often, bruising everywhere with the slightest bump, breast discharge (galactorhea- diagnosed) (checked multiple x's for breast cancer), low potassium, high cortisol, she didn't know why ANY of this was wrong when testing confirmed negative results. I was growing more and more depressed, alarmed, and aggravated.
My husband saw this thing on tv about Cushings syndrome and mentioned it to me. I told the doc and she ran bloodwork. Potassium was low again (imagine that, quite frequently it did this), cortisol was high a little, she consulted a endocrinologist and he suggested a forced cortisol test, she did and it was a bit high, " not enough to be concerned about " she told me. That was it, they wanted to schedule a follow up, " for what ", I asked... with my breasts having the discharge and having put off the ductogram (I'd had a mammogram, mri, ct scan, and ultrasound, all were normal...), I had it done and it was normal, BUT...I demanded. She was going to just have my duct removed out of the breasts and I was like, " I don't think so because there's a bigger picture to this !!!
I scheduled a appt with the endo she'd confered with and I'd had multiple referrals to him by a family member. So I went and immediately he told me I had Cushings. I told him that hadn't been diagnosed and we talked about several things concerning my health and I told him that now I was having trouble just walking, bending, arising in the mornings...it's terrible and frustrating because I feel like a cripple, and it hurts so very bad to just function, I cried I wanted my life back !!! He told me he'd help me to just give him some time. He scheduled a sleep (oxygen deprivation) test because I don't sleep at night, or wake up very often, 24-hr urine collection test, and lots of blood work I'm still waiting on.
He told me he's 100% sure it's one or the other Cushings. I have the buffalo hump too, he found that examining me, I thought that hump was inherited from my grandmother because she had one (hers was from being older and bent over, I realize now), I guess I was too perplexed to realize it hadn't been there before. Idk, I'm still quite confused. I just went to find out about arthritis too before meeting with the endo and arthritis was ruled out after bloodwork. So that too leans me more toward Cushings. It's quite depressing all the waiting, guesswork, and having to suspect your own diagnosis for so long.
The endo remembered talking to me other doc about ths cortisol, he was mad she didn't further the investigation into my symptoms, "he said that was YOU, " !!! ??? I said yes, he sadly shook his head...
