Well, I typed this out one time and now here I am again.  It didn’t post the first time for some reason.  I apologize if you see it twice.

My name’s Penny and I was diagnosed with CAH at birth.  1st off, I want to say to the parents out there, that I am a happy, well adjusted adult who’s married and about to attend law school.  I am not a mutant!  :)  2nd.  I want to say that I had excellent care growing up, I was lucky.  Michigan State University had a great pediatric endo department.   I’m also lucky because I don’t have a severe form of CAH (e.g I never required surgery or drastic therapy)  However, I wish I had this website when I was growing up and having to go througha ll the poking, prodding and bone x rays that they did.  Not to mention that MSU is a teaching facility, so I think more residents have seen me naked than I care to think about.  :)  Wait, maybe that’s a good thing.

I’ve been on cortisone (kid), prednisone (adult) and florinef...and I’ve had some side effects.  (I’m always battling my weight darnit!) But, I recently proved my last endo wrong.  He told me I would always be fat because of the prednisone (even though I’m on such a low dose) I lost 35 pounds and have since found a different doctor.  He also told me I would never get pregnant.  I’d like to kick him in the... you know where as every other endo has told me I can get pregnant.

Anyway, I have a question.  I am pretty normal through and through...but the older I get the more weird medical maladies I seem to have.  Nothing life threatening, just annoying.  Like, when I was 20, I started getting kidney stones.  Now I’m on medication to prevent the formation.  I’ve had an unexplained attack of pancreatitis...and now I possibly have gall stones too.  Oh, and I sweat a lot...but that could be just because I live in Houston.  (Waiting on the ultrasound results for that one.)  Has anyone else noticed this?  Or read anything about it?  My endo hasn’t been able to give me a straight answer about all these seemingly unrelated medical conditions.

Anyway, please feel free to email me if you want to know what it was like growing up with CAH.  I can tell you my feelings as a kid when I was ging to the endo all the time etc. 

Every time I get angry, I just tell myself, it could be a whole lot worse.  :)