Posted by Elroy on March 27, 2005, at 19:25:21
In reply to RE: Segeline (Deprenyl) and phenyalanine » Elroy, posted by Larry Hoover on March 26, 2005, at 14:09:04
Here's how this how package seemed to go down:
1. Realize something's terribly wrong - physically as well as emotionally.
2. Go to regular PCP (who sells nutritional supplements on side and has a rehab work-out center attached to his offices). He wants "full physical done" (which consists of just very basic blood work).
3. Regular PP comes back with diagnosis that I am just "getting older" (early 50s) and need to "eat better", "supplement my diet" and "exercise more" (note... I already was doing ALL three).
4. When I insisted on more testing, he checked again and found that I had "dismally low" testosterone levels (a month before all of this started - with the initial onslaught of bad anxiety which just kept getting more and more severe). Without checking any other particulars, I was put on a minimum level dosage of AndroGel.
5. Insisted on more testing and was referred to a (local) Endo. He wrote up a bunch of tests and I literally had to beg to get cortisol testing added to the work order (I actually thought that it might be adrenal fatigue). Instead it came back as extremely elevated cortisol levels. Local endo was ecstatic as he thought that it was Cushings for sure (based on ultra high levels and one older fashioned CRH Test).
6. Urologist that I was seeing was upset that no one was looking at adrenal glands (the local endo was just sure it was a pituitary tumor based Cushings). So local Endo had CT Scan done and found a 2.1 x 1.8 cm in left adrenal gland).
7. Urologist was convinced that adrenal gland lesion was responsible for Cushings but local endo remained convinced it was pituitary.
8. At that I transfered to a major medical clinic endo. He had more advanced testing conducted and results came back that it wasn't Cushings. So therefore there was no pit tumor OR adrenal tumor DIRECTLY causing the super high cortisol... so ruled that the adrenal lesion was just "incidental" and "not biologically active"...
9. Now new PCP has re-opened the question, basically saying, "hey, we know that the adrenal gland lesion isn't directly causing the cortisol elevation, and apparently isn't malignant... but we also know that it is inside the adrenal gland and obviously likely to be affecting the medulla of the gland - and the medulla is what controls the secretion of adrenaline which - in excess - can cause severe anxiety... so how about we look further into this possibility???"...And, BINGO, suddenly I'm getting new tests scheduled that are clearly designed to look at things like a more detailed CT Scan, more blood work, some other procedures... all designed to see if the adrenal gland (tumor) might be secreting abnormal levels of adrenaline (and related substances).
On one hand I really, really hope that's the case and that - like with Cushing's - a surgical intervention can remove the anxiety and these various physical symptoms. On the other hand, I'll be ticked that this could have potentially happened as far back as late September and would have saved me further months of additional pains and agony....
poster:Elroy
thread:452259
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/alter/20050323/msgs/476400.html