Could there be one cause for all this??

[MrsTxMoose]

When I was only 13 I was diagnosed with kidney stones. My doctors thought this was a strange occurance but nothing was ever done and I just learned to deal with them. About three years ago when I was 20 I gained a lot of weight seemingly over night. I went from 5'9" and 160 pounds to 250 pounds in a matter of months. Since then I have seen several speicalists in order to get to the bottem of the weight gain and overall feeling of just being sick. It started off with an abnormal liver function test. With my ast and alt being 6-8 times the normal range. I was diagnosed with NASH and soon after insulin resistance. When my weight hit its highest at 265 I developed an umblical hernia. (Doubt this is relevent but thought I would mention it anyways) When I was referred to an endocrinologist for the insulin resistance it was discovered I had secondary hyperparathyroidism and told to take a vitamin d supplement to see if it would help to correct the issue. I received a call from my women's health doctor today and told that I have PCOS AND anemia... Could there be an underlying cause for ALL of these conditions that my doctors are just not connecting the dots on?? A lot of other things I have noticed and learned to live with is, excessively dry skin, dry brittle hair, hair loss, insomnia, easily fatigued, join pain in my hips, back, and legs. A friend mentioned that this could all be a sign of a problem with my pituitary and possibly cushings. If these are signs of cushings what kind of tests should I have my doctor run to confirm?

[Daniel M Prevedello, MD]

Dear MrsTxMoose,

I agree with all the answers you received. It does not necessarily means you have Cushing's disease, but with your symptoms I agree it should be investigated/ruled out.
You should discuss with an endocrinologist, ideally one specialized in neuro-endocrinology (pituitary).

thank you

[rumpled]

I did not have anemia, but mine caused me to not clot properly. It is not a typical symptom.

I think that once you have one auto-immune issue, others tend to follow.

[MrsTxMoose]

Okay, Thank you so much for sharing your experience with me. That gives me the reassurance I was looking for. I will def ask my doctor to order the tests. I find it just so hard to believe that I have got 4 different conditions and there isn't an underlying cause for all of them ya know?? A friend of mine going through med school just mentioned that because all of these (minus the anemia) have to do with horomones it definitely sounded like it had something to do with my pituitary gland. So I've kinds shifted focus to that for now...  Earlier this year o was trying to get my insurance to approve gastric bypass and I couldn't get it approved, starting to think that all this might be the reason why lol some kinda sign from above to explore everything before I go having life altering surgery.

[LucyEvony]

I was diagnosed with cushings disease in February this year
I had my pituitary gland removed end of March
Im still in recovery mode :)

I guess the main thing i found with cushings is, everyone presents differently.
I wasnt a real typical cushings case. I didnt " LOOK " like i had cushings, moon face, buffalo hump, stretch marks.

But i had very high blood pressure and very high glucose levels and neither could be controlled with multiple medications. So an endocrinologist tested my cortisol levels on the off chance and next thing i know im going thru lots of tests and sure enough...all my biochemistry indicated Cushings.

So i guess my advice is even if you dont have all the symptoms, but only have some, what can it hurt to get your cortisol checked !!! Ask your doc :)

I had a 24hr Urine Free cortisol and a Midnight saliva cortisol to start. when they came back high i had another 24 hr urine, midnight saliva, dexamethazone suppression test followed by an early am serum cortisol. I ended up having 4 months of testing just to make sure.


It could always be something else. The only way you get to know these things is by ruling them out :). Its just a simple urine/ saliva test. No big deal. I certainly didnt have any trouble getting my Endocrinologist to order tests. She wanted to keep testing to make sure, over n over lol. Mainly because i didnt look typical :)

A GOOD doctor will always listen to a patient !!! make sure you have a good doctor :)

Goodluck

[MrsTxMoose]

Do either one of you have some sort of personal experience with cushings? Does this sound like it could be cushings?? I kinda wanted to have some sort of reassurance before I went into my doctors office looking like a paranoid ding dong for thinking I had some rare diesease... Lol I have read up on the condition and I know I have a lot of the symptoms but does it sound like it could be something else perhaps??

[LucyEvony]

Sorry...that links just the forum page...this is the link for testing info :)

http://cushings.invisionzone.com/index.php?/forum/207-tests/

[LucyEvony]

Check out this site as well as do some reading here :)

http://cushings.invisionzone.com/

[rumpled]

There is no one test to rule Cushing's in or out.

There are sites on it. You would need several sets of 24 hour urinary free cortisol tests, 8am blood tests, midnight salivas if the doc gives them. followed up with source tests like dex suppression tests, perhaps IPSS if imaging not clear.