HI Kirk,

I have definately wondered aobut these same things. For my own daughter I know that height growth has been an issue and that since we changed her schedule according to the natural rhythms of the body her growth has a huge turn around! The answer to your question can be that growth is compromised for certain individuals with CAH. In the past doctors just wanted to get the numbers down as low as they could and have them stay there, who cares if they were oversuppressed at least they aren’t escaping control. This way of medicating can affect some people with regards to growth. Others are affected with regards to height. There are many side effects of being oversuppressed and height and weight wre two of them.

Now, another reason why height can be affected is if the CAH person is in fact undersuppressed and allowed to escaped control and have advanced bone age. Or be diagnosed late with advanced bone age. The undiagnosed CAH child will be a tall child but the bones will fuse too early leaving him a short adult.

Your son was diagnosed early, thankfully you have that on his side! Keeping up on his levels and not allowing him to be oversuppressed can help tremendously. If he is showing problems in either of these areas you could try to schedule according to the natural rhythms of the body. Good luck! Julia