A Patient Story.
Today, well today I feel as weak as a kitten, in fact, I think a kitten would have more strength.
Tomorrow? Tomorrow, I could be buzzing around, catching up on all my delayed tasks. Such are the ways of hormones.
Acromegaly starts with a, normally, benign tumour on the pituitary gland. This tumour goes on to produce an excess of growth hormone. In my own case the count was around 50. It should have been 5!
It took me years to persuade the medical profession, myself, my employers and the DSS that something was amiss with my health. Everyone seemed to think that I was lying to them. Then, one day I saw the right doctor and within a couple of weeks I was being wheeled into an MRI scanner for confirmation of the worst and within a couple of months I was sitting in hospital waiting for the neurosurgeon to remove a rather large tumour from the centre of my head. Wow!
I felt relieved, I felt angry, I felt scared and I felt totally alone. Relieved because at least now I knew what was wrong. Angry because of the years of doubt. Scared because of the operation and alone because, well because I thought I was.
Now, three years on, most of the time I don't know if I'm better or not.
My tumour has gone, my GH count is down to 5 and my face and skin have regained some youthfulness. So what's the problem?

There is no doubt that my tumour had to come out but along with it came the plunger for my hormone injector.
Perhaps I should explain.
When something unexpected happens to our bodies, i.e. stress, our brain recognises this and sends a chemical message to the hypothalamus. These signals are interpreted in the hypothalamus, which then tells the pituitary gland to produce hormones of the correct amount and type to help us to cope. Thus our bodies deal with their own maintenance.
Well I don't have a pituitary gland any more and so any messages from the hypothalamus fall on deaf ears. The answer to that?

Hormone Replacement Therapy
I currently use the following drugs:

• Hydrocortisone
• Thyroxin
• Desmopressin
• Testosterone(patches)
• Lanreotide (injection every two weeks)
• I also use Atenolol and Simvastatin for related heart problems.

But that's another story!
I am hoping to expand upon these pages in future months but for now, more detailed information can be found HERE or HERE
And my more personal thoughts can be found HERE

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