Hello Carrie,

I can not tell you from a professional standpoint about carriers and dehydration but for what it’s worth, I can tell you my opinion about carriers in general.  Let me explain. 

Since there are different levels of CAH, I would assume a person simply being a carrier could be on the lowest level and have some symptoms.   Like excess hair,  be overly anxious than most, extra depressed or angry at times, etc.  It seems like your body might be fine as you go along daily routines but when you hit "stress" your body might not produce exactly what it should in the way of the stress hormones and then certain things are magnified.  My levels were tested because I have certain symptoms that I thought, after my daughter was born, might be related.  However, they came out pretty normal. 

My sister and brother were tested when they were younger (about 30 years ago) because they had symptoms of CAH and they thought it might be the 3 beta kind because it would appear sometimes but not others and the 3 beta is the most erratic sort.  But they ended up just saying they didn’t have it and later my sister was diagnosed with PCOS even though they still aren’t sure about it. 

I would love to see carriers who have symptoms be tested when they are sick.  Not when they are well.  I believe that  my siblings are carriers too and when they were tested when they were young, the imbalance was because they tested them sometimes when they were well and sometimes when they were sick so it would show up only periodically and only slightly even then. 

Of course it would also depend upon what kind you are a carrier of.  When I was DNA tested, it was not one of the 95 percent normally found so I might be a carrier with different symptoms than someone else. 

Back to dehydration.  When my hormones fluctuate, I get dehydrated.  During my menstral cycle usually but most especially, when I became pregnant. I ended up having a pic line placed in my arm to my heart and was given fluids 24/7 for 7 months.   I really think it has to do with being a carrier but I also could be way off base.  

A lot of scattered thoughts but I thought I would put them out there.

Take care,

RebeccaM