I had never heard of it before my doctor said he thought I might have Cushing’s. I went right to the library and read about the disease, they literally could have used a picture of me to display the physical characteristics.
After some testing I went to the NIH to verify I had a pituitary tumor. After it was confirmed I was scheduled for surgery. My surgery was successful to a point. They said a small part of my tumor could not be removed. My recovery went fairly well!
I began to lose weight and a lot of my symptoms went away. However it has been a long road. I still have some symptoms that never went away, I still sweat a lot, body aches and pains (now I have RA, fibromyalgia) memory not great, never lost all my weight either. My labs all say most of the time I am in normal range but I do not feel cured! But new doctor says numbers are fine you are fine.
I have been disabled since 1993, I had a lot of health issues that later were all related to Cushing’s. This disease in my opinion is never cured!
Hi my story is so much like all the others that I have been reading on this site.
For the last several years I have been feeling bad, I am tired all the time. I have gained 50 pounds. I have always had a low body temperature and feel the cold more than most people;however in the last 3 years or so I can’t take extreme heat either. I am always either too hot or too cold. Sometimes I sleep for 12 hours and other times I do not sleep at all.
This year I have had people tell me that my personality has changed I am much more aggressive than before. I also look bloated around the face and belly. People keep asking me am I pregnant because my stomach is huge!
In the last 12 months my hair started to fall out. I got an peptic ulcer, been diagnosed with slow digestion, sleep apnea and arthritis of the spine. I used to be able to walk 4 miles in 40 minutes but now I can barely walk a mile. My short term memory is bad and getting worse all the time. I find it really hard to focus. I have had 2 upper respitory infections in the last 10 months which is unusal for me. Also I have dermatitis on my back which just started 4 years ago.
I thought maybe I had a thryoid issue so I went to my GP who sent me for bloodwork. She tested my TSH, T3, T4, ACTH and Cortisol. My TSH’s came back normal (2.7) but my ACTH and Cortisol is high. I don’t have diabetes or high blood pressure although my stress level is through the roof most of the time. Anyway my doctor thought that the ACTH and Cortisol was too high and she asked me if I was getting more headaches. I have always suffered from migraines but in the last couple of years the headaches have gotten worse. She thinks I may have Cushings disease.
My doctor was so concerned that she is sending me for an MRI and I got to a referall to an endo who I will see in two weeks. I will post an update as soon as I know something.
My adrenal incidentaloma was discovered after an abdominal CT in 2011. My doctor told me that it was insignificant, and no follow up was needed.
Late 2012 I began having symptoms which led me to believe that something hormonal was going on. I was having extreme anxiety, headaches, insomnia, new onset hypertension, hair loss, blurred vision, memory problems, dizziness, and extremely heavy menses. I went to the gynecologist because I thought it might be premenopausal symptoms. The doctor started me on birth control pills to regulate the periods, which was the only symptom that improved.
My general practitioner sent me to a cardiologist for my blood pressure which was spiking as high as 194/110. The cardiologist immediately suspected a pheo, and referred me back to the GP with a recommendation for a referral to endocrinology. The initial round of labs were all within normal limits with the exception of plasma cortisol due to the estrogen pills. The endocrinologist told me to follow up in one year.
A lot of people started telling me it I was just stressed out, and depressed. I don’t buy it for a minute. It feels like something chemically is wrong. It’s hard to explain….I just don’t feel right. Yes, I have stressful things going on, but not anything that should make me feel like this. Especially when things are fine, and I am going to meet a friend for coffee why on earth would I almost freak out on the way there? I started feeling better for a couple of months, then the symptoms came back.
I have had 3 near panic attacks in the last 6 months, social withdrawal, rapid abdominal weight gain, hospitalized with 24 hours of amnesia (transient global amnesia…which left lesions on my hippocampus), headaches, hypertension, amenorrhea for 8 months, increased facial hair.
My first lab test was the high dose dexamethasone which I did not supress. Last week I did the 24 hour urine…a whopping 3650 liters!! I will get the results on Thursday. My endo said he will need to do an adrenal vein sampling as part of the diagnosis.
Has anyone else had to do this? I am in Germany, so maybe it is just different protocol here, but I really don’t want to have to do it.
My son is almost 16 years old and so sick he hardly gets out of bed anymore. Although no Dr.s believes me I do believe he has Cushings and the Dr.s can not give me any other idea’s of what is wrong with him only that he needs to lose weight and exercise more. My son is so tired of hearing this that at his last appointment with a specialist at Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia he left in tears and wants to know why no one is helping him. He is to the point where he doesn’t even want to go to the Dr.s anymore, he thinks it’s pointless. He has only had one 24hr Urine test which came back normal and an cortisol & ACTH test taken at 5pm and these were also within range. I am going to guess maybe things started at the age of 9 or 10 and progressively gotten worse.
His symptoms are as follows and the explained away answers from the Dr.s –
1. Headaches all day everyday – sometimes severe, sometimes just there and no amount of advil seems to take it away completely – Dr.s probably puberty and since he is a big kid take up to 4-advil every 4 hours.
2. Buffalo Hump – we brought him to the Dr. about 2-3yrs ago for this odd hump on the back of his neck – Dr.s it’s just a fat deposit – he just deposits fat in odd places
3. Red to purple stretch marks that fade and get brighter but never go away completely – they appear in masses on his sides, back, shoulders and stomach – Dr.s response although his stretch marks are quite impressive they are typical of what you would see in cushings they are not purple enough or wide enough.
4. Severe pain in back and knee (sometimes elbows) – he can’t even take a simple trip to the stores as it is to much for him to walk around – his is 15yrs old and is now asking me to get him a cane to help him get around. Dr.s response to the pain – must be growing pains (my son is 6’1″ and I was just told he is pretty much done growing)
5. He does not sleep at night, says can’t fall to sleep no matter how hard he tries and when he finally does fall asleep in the morning early hours he will sleep most of the day, then wake up still feeling tired. He told me it’s like his mind sleeps but his body doesn’t feel rested at all. Dr.s said he needs to stop video games and t.v. to hours before bed – these types of things stimulate the mind thats why he can’t sleep.
When the Dr.s were told the rest, they really didn’t say anything at all – below are the rest of his symptoms:
6. He is starving at night – he says he has to eat he is so hungry
7. Having a hard time remembering things and getting progressively worse
8. Losing his grip – he can barely right his name – when I ask him to squeeze my hand it hardly even hurts me now and he says when he tries to squeeze hard he gets this odd sensation up his arm and it feels really off .
9. Has a hard time sitting for an extended amount of time – this has caused him to miss the last 6 weeks of school – his says the pain in his back and sides are just to much to handle when trying to sit.
10. He has had numerous skin aliments, mouth sores
11. Always thirsty
12. Acanthosis Nigricans – back of neck, under arms, elbows
13. never a sick child until recently – strep throat, mono (which I was first told he didn’t have), normal colds now last for weeks with him where he never even got colds before.
14. slow healing of cuts and he scars horribly
I am sure there are other things but these are the first to come to the top of my head. His biggest complaint is the memory loss, lack of sleep and pain. I am scared for my son and do not understand how this is acceptable for anyone let alone a 15yr old. I am watching him get worse and watching his precious teenage years just pass right by him.
I was diagnosed with Cushing’s in 2003 . I was 34 years old, a single Mom of an 8 year old daughter and a Ceritified Nurse-Midwife. I had a pituitary microadenoma and it was removed via TSA nov, 2003. I had remission until 2006.
I knew I was getting sick again but my labs were inconclusive for many months. I had reduced my work hours and still too fatigued to work safely.
In August of 2006 I went to my primary care doctor and told her I was also having a great deal of trouble with my memory such as remembering medications that I gave all the time and even remembering how to look them up. I stopped working that day.
I had 1/2 pituitary removed in November 2006 with no remisssion. I researched options and got other opinions NIH, and Mass General and everyone agreed on radiation…the BIG dose ond day kind. Remission achieved a few months later.
I am still in remission currently, but not who I used to be. Still requiring naps a couple of times a day and to bed early . I have a lot of trouble concentrating, so I can’t drive more than 30 minutes or as my friend says, “my inner canine comes out” and I start staring out the window…kind of forgetting i’m driving. It’s funny but not really. what a wild ride this has been.
It is easy to feel like the only one with this disease, I’m glad you all are here to make it a friendlier place.
Another Golden Oldie, this bio was originally posted 01/22/2008
Hi, I’m ORKitty. I live in Portland, OR, with my wonderful husband and kitty. I just turned 50 in 2005.
I began this journey quite possibly 17 years ago when I had some isolated panic attacks and then suddenly had panic 24 hours a day. I also kept crying and didn’t know why. I was eventually put on Xanax and then found a psychiatrist who put me on the anti-depressant imipramine and weaned me off the Xanax. It worked well for both the panic and depression for about 10 years. I gained some weight which I attributed to the anti-depressant. During this time I was still able to work and ran my own home-based business for 3 years. About seven years ago my anxiety worsened and my psychiatrist added Klonopin to deal with it. About this time I began gaining even more weight.
Due to a terrible (and terrifying) experience with a doctor, I developed a real phobia about seeing doctors. I managed to overcome this in early 2003 and have a large lump on my neck examined. An ultrasound showed normal tissue, but while I was there the doctor took my blood pressure at 160/100 and then decided to do an EKG. She found an abnormality and sent me to a cardiologist who diagnosed me with severe cardiomyopathy (next step dead). I was put on medication and had regular echocardiograms every few months and each one showed more improvement.
In fall of 2003 I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism and began taking Levoxyl, increasing by very small doses because it seemed to increase my anxiety every time I upped the dose. At the same time I was taken off the imipramine because there was some concern that it may have contributed to my heart problems. As my thyroid meds increased I began to lose weight and began having serious digestive problems including constant diarrhea. I had burning sensations in both arms, edema in both legs and my periods stopped. After some misdiagnoses and some doctor abuse I was finally found to have gallstones and had my gallbladder removed in April of 2004. I had hoped this would clear up the digestive issues, but that wasn’t the case.
After the surgery I noticed that my depression was getting much worse. By July I found that I couldn’t stand to listen to music or watch TV without getting anxious and upset. I was also feeling like I was in a fog and had racing, looping thoughts. I had trouble with reasoning and memory. My psychiatrist began prescribing a variety of medications, none of which seemed to help any of my symptoms. Things were so bad that I became suicidal for the first time in my life.
I finally persuaded my doctor to do a CAT scan to see what was wrong with my digestive system. Nothing showed up there but they found a uterine/ovarian mass and an adrenal adenoma. My doctor didn’t tell me about the adenoma until a later visit when she mentioned it in passing, saying it was nothing to worry about.
Oregon Health Sciences University. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
That was when I saw my first endocrinologist hoping to get help with my thyroid and an explanation of what was going on with my adrenal gland. He did a 24-hr. urine collection and my cortisol was high (200). He did an 8mg Dex test and I didn’t suppress completely so he sent me to Dr. Cook at OHSU who did a CRH/Dex test. The results were somewhat ambiguous, but he decided that the most likely source was the adrenal adenoma and recommended having the gland removed. I had that surgery in December of 2004. The day of the surgery I developed phlebitis in my right arm starting at the site of the IV. My arm became red and swollen from wrist to shoulder and all the superficial veins in that arm clotted up and disappeared. Ten months later I still can’t have blood drawn from that arm.
In the months after my surgery my heart went back to normal and my cholesterol and blood pressure improved, my periods came back and the burning sensations lessened. My legs were still swollen and suddenly became very red and hot. Doctors suggested it might be cellulitis or vasculitis. After 10 days of antibiotics the redness went away and a few months later the edema did, too. An ultrasound of my legs showed a thickened vein in my right leg that suggested there might have previously been a blood clot there. The mental fog slowly improved but I’m still not back to where I was. The anxiety and depression did not improve and have even gotten worse.
I planned to have the uterine mass removed after the adrenal surgery. This would be a total hysterectomy and my surgeon feels that my blood clotting problems need to be treated before the surgery. He is 99% certain that it is not cancerous since it hasn’t changed in over a year so I have the option of having the surgery when and if I choose. Of course there is a very slight chance that this mass could be the ACTH source.
Dr. Cook wants to do the IPSS before the MRI of my pituitary but this clotting problem needs to be dealt with before we stick 3-foot catheters in my veins. Plus I am running out of arm veins for the IVs.
Right now I’m waiting for my doctors to decide how to deal with this clotting problem before I can get the IPSS done.
I had a follow-up visit with Dr. Cook in September of 2005 and he ran all the tests again including the CRH/Dex. Since we thought the adrenalectomy had cured the problem, we were both surprised when my ACTH did not suppress. Dr. Cook wants to do an IPSS to see if the source is ectopic or pituitary. As I mentioned above, there is a slight chance that the growth on my uterus and right ovary could be the source of the ACTH. Neither my Gyn surgeon nor Dr. Cook feel that this is very likely, but it does make having the IPSS even more important than it would normally be.
I present with most of the outward physical characteristics: age 57 “weight gain (obese which began about 1991 with a sudden 60 lb increase in 2 months and no explanation, physician had wanted me to go to a Mayo clinic for eval but at the time I could not spare time nor expense…and more recently continuring weight gain, easy bruising, (menses stopped at age 50, but don’t recollect too many probs except migraines), ravenous appetite, occasional trouble sleeping, depression or mood swings, anxiety, fatigue and altered mentation which is trouble concentrating or decreased memory and now diagnosed ADHD.
1-3. Physical abnormalities include new onset obesity, mine is more recent weight gain, primarily in the abdominal, buffalo hump which presented suddenly a few summers ago but has been brushed off by doctors…, rounding and reddening of the face which began about ten years ago, thin skin, decreased muscle strength, high blood pressure, and excess hair growth on face, have to shave every day, some times twice, have 5 o’clock shadow, but I have already been to a local endocrinologist in Billings, Montana, there are only a couple in this sparsely populated area, and none of the lab tests showed anything particularly abnormal…open to suggestions, thanks so much…
Hi my name is Kristi and I’m seeking any help or advice on Cushings.
I had always been active growing up into sports, running, weight lifting and horseback riding.
27 Yrs ago I gave birth to a beautiful healthy daughter. I was a size 10 and had only gained 25 LBS during prignancy. Less then a year later I was carrying my second daughter. I had no appetite and could barely eat but was gaining 10 pds every other day. My blood pressure soared and I was diagnosed with pre-eclampsia. I have been sick ever since I gave birth.
In the past 20yrs I have put on over 150 lbs and I can’t get it off. I was told I had a fatty liver and my cholesterol and triglicerites are off the chart. I began having memory trouble even forgetting my daughters name, hair loss, blurred vision (even typing this is slow going so forgive any mistakes) I started falling, loosing bladder and bowel control, walk into walls, tables and door frames/ I’ve had bouts of blndness and layered viion (Multiple Sclerosis has been ruled out) chronic body and nerve pain, horrible mood swings from happy, depressed, anger, intolerance (it’s like a daily rollar coaster ride) SEVERE salt cravings, low body temp, heaviness in legs, bruising, infections, trouble healing, brain lesions., trouble sleeping. Get cyst on my breast, head, ears and pubic area. Have little hard bumps on pubic area that never go away. No sex drive left for husband and even when we are active it’s very painful.. Major swelling in face, neck, legs and feet, backaches, headaches. When I stand up I feel like I get a head rush or lightheaded and I flap my arms to stay up or I fall back into bed or chair. I sweat even in winter. I do have the buffalo hump, the stretch marks, the moon face, brain lesions and the discolored skin under breast, behind neck and arm pits.
Dec. 6th I had a carbuncle which had develped staff and mrsa removed from my armpit. My whole armpit had to be removed and a couple weeks later I developed an abcess and had to go back to surgery. It has been 5 months and I still can’t heal. Have been packing the wound every day and seeing the surgeon every 2 wks. Now I have a carbuncle on the other side and I’m facing more painful surgery after this side heals.
Today I recieved a call that the urine test I took for cushings came back with normal levels. Needless to say I sat down and sobbed. I am 46 yrs old and I have been sick for half my life. I have seen so may doctors, been through so many surgeries and painful testings. I have been told over and over that there is something wrong but the Doctors can’t find it. I thought cushings was the answer and that I could finally get treatment and get better. I look in the mirror and I don’t recogize this person I see….How will I start over again on this long search for answers? Where will I get the strength?
August 31st, 2010, I had a macroadenomas pituitary removed transsphenoidally by Sandeep Kunwar, MD at UCSF.
I displayed all the typical symptoms for years, but was not “officially” diagnosed until I developed pathological bone fractures. Even all the fractures were not recognized until a full body scan showed the multitude of fractures. I feel, with time, I do feel much better. My body will, of course, never be the same.
The most disturbing aspect for me at this point is memory loss and the inability to form words. I know words exist for what I’m trying to say… but I can’t remember what they are. And my short term memory is a constant problem.
I would love to know if anyone else is having these same issues. And anything else post surgery. It is so hard to stuggle with these memory issues with any social situation !!
My life has changed a lot in the past year. Last August, I was diagnosed with Cushing’s but if it wasn’t for my boyfriend watching a special on Cushing’s I would still be battling the symptoms today. About 5 years ago I started to gain weight. I’ve always been very active and eating protein diet. I would exercise 5 -6 times a week and still gain weight. It didn’t make any sense to me. I had a personal trainer and he didn’t understand why I wasn’t losing wieght. My stomach continued to get a bigger pouch. I looked pregnant. Over the course of the past few years my weight went up and down. Then I started bruising very easily. People probably thought I was in abusive relationship which was not the case. I had my blood tested for being anemic. My white and red blood cell count went up and down. The doctor’s did not know what was going on and sent me on my marry way.
July 2012, my life changed. My boyfriend caught the end of special on Cushing’s. He asked me if I’ve ever been tested for it? I said “No”!! I was telling my mom about it and how my boyfriend felt I should get tested for it. I really didn’t want to go to my doctor and say test me for Cushing’s. She told me to go get tested. The more I researched it the more I realized I may have this. I finally made an appointment. I went to my doctor and highlighted all the related systoms. I had 11 out of 13. She believed me and started testing me. After all the urine, blood, CT and MRI scans. They diagonosed me August 2012.
I must say I’m lucky things fell into placed. It wasn’t long after my diagonses I was making appointment with Dr. Q at John Hopkins University to have my tumor removed. I
Location of the pituitary gland in the human brain (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
He would have to remove my gland if he wanted to remove the lesion. Which means I would not have any hormones. He did not want to take that away from me since I’m only 28 and have a lot of life ahead of me. 6 months post surgery I’m still taking Hydrocortisone. They are slowly weaning me off the drugs. I can see a few changes. My memory and concentration is coming back. I now have definition back in my face. My weight is still up but that’s due to steriods. I hope that comes down once I’m off.
I beleive I was diagonosed at the right time. It seems like my symptoms took a turn for the worse in a matter of month after I was diagonosed. I wonder today what my life would be like if my boyfriend never saw the special and I never had the surgery. Dr. Q and him saved my life!!! I just pray everyday that the lesion does not turn into Cushing’s. So far, I’m in remission!!!!
One note to all my fellow Cushie’s ~ You have to fight for yourself. Cushing’s is hard to diagonose. If you’re doctor’s don’t believe you find someone who does. Don’t give up!!!
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