I did a little survey several years ago as I have always believed that there is a relationship between carriers and symptoms.  Many of the people that responded had similar or the same symptoms.  We are not talking about common things but unusual ones such as phobias, depression and irrational thoughts of suicide.

My believe is the same as for CAHers.  Depending on the type of CAH (severe, sw, late onset, mild) it may spill over to the carriers.  I believe that it also depends on the type of life you live and the more stress and troubles involved the more symptoms you may experience.  If you live a pretty calm life (which is hard to do with a severe salt waster as a baby) you may escape obvious symptoms.  Remember, we as carrier only produce HALF the amount of cortef as the "Normal" person.  Therefore we should be ok with "normal" stress but when under continuous or severe stress it just won’t do the job.

My son has a very, very severe case of CAH.  My father is the carrier in our family and suffered from depression when he was younger.

I had agoraphobia as well as anxiety about simple things.  I also had uncontrollable sweat under my arms and had to use special precautions to hid it.  I believe this is related to the severe salt wasting portion of our CAH.  I have suffered from depression and a bit of panicky spells.  I have always been a strong minded person as I went through some very abusive things when I was a child.  I know the difference between simple depression and chemical or clinical depression having experienced them both.  I also have been diagnosed with fibromyalgia, hypothyroid, depression and all the other things listed in the study.  Some of these symptoms had increased during and after the birth of my SWCAH son.  I rushed myself in to a depression study group and signed up to participate in a CAH carrier study.  Both my husband and I suffered from infertility and we get skin rashes and get very irrational when under a lot of stress.  We both get sick in the heat and I still sweat like crazy when it’s hot.  I am also fighting an unusual form of cancer in the "testicular" area and it is usually a kind that is seen in men.......just what I need.(;>)

My mother-in-law is a carrier and she was always the tallest child in her school until she hit the 5th or 6th grade and then grew very little after that.  She went into puberty early and has bouts of depression.  She tried to commit suicide once.  My husband said that she used to have to drink alcohol before she went out to parties or public functions.

One of my sister-in-laws (who we have always believed is a carrier) suffered a complete adrenal shut down last year and is being treated with Cortef and florinef.  She has never felt better and has stopped talking to herself.

Another sister-in-law had such acne when she went into puberty that my husband said she looked like she had a cheese pizza on her back.  She has no breasts and can’t sit still for two seconds or begins getting nervous and has to move around.

My OBGYN has told me that they now teach students in college that it is not only a possibility that carriers exhibit symptoms but will most probably do so as they get older.

One of my brother’s children is suffering from what they think is a bi polar disorder and she is 5 feet tall.

One other sister of mine (who was a tomboy when she was a child - and remains so today) has had all of the same symptoms that I have and has been misdiagnosed throughout her life causing so much harm to her that my heart aches.  Her son grew 12 inches in one season.

I believe this is just a start for us and would like to see a treatment of some kind for those of us who suffer from CAH symptoms.  First though, I would like to see a better treatment for our full CAH children.  The current treatment is mediocre at best and is not managed well.

I will keep an eye on the studies that are going on and hope to see some outcome that will help us all.

Remember, there are different types of CAH ranging from mild to severe and it seems that the symptoms do as well for both CAHers AND Carriers.

I hope we don’t hear the last of this.