Thanks for not eating me alive. I know this topic an be very infamatory so i choose my words carefully and hope for the best. I am glad the people who have responded to my inqueries are not being mean about it. And once again I wish to offend no one.
To answeres TAR (I did not meanto ignore you) #1. I don't have a child with CAH, and #2 I am not a MED student per se. I do have BS in Biology and once upon a time (In high school) I was the top student in my class, not only in biology but all things science. I am such a book worm when it comes to science. The journey we call life has kept me away from the medical field (I have tried to put my degree to good use but wife, kids and lousey economy has kept me from really digging in like I want to). Don't get me wrong, I don't regret being married or having kids and I wouldn't change that, but sometimes I wonder if i waited to get established before settleing down would things be a bit different for me.
Anyway. If you are wondering why I take an interest in CAH, well that goes back about 20+ years ago. Like I said I am a book worm, my dad and my aunt are both in the medical field, and they did keep a stack of reference materials at the house. I have come to realize (from personal experience) if you tell a child no, or treat something as taboo, then the person would be drawn to that something to find out why rather than avoid it. Well at least that was the case for me my little brother and my only female cousin and anything related to the birds and the bees.
My aunt had this great big old dusty book on human reproduction. The three of us would get to gether and look at the pictures (The medical vocabulary was far beyond our capacity, biut a picture is worth 1000 words). At the back of the book it discussed intersexed, it showed a collection of pictures showing variations of people (adults) not exactly man or woman. As kids we made comments about those pictures but never really paid them much attention. Along with this big book were several other smaller books about various diseases, one of which talked about adreno functions. at the back of the book was a small photograph of a 3 day old child with (what looked to me at the time) the end of a hot dog stuck between this girls legs, now i know it was a clitoris. I thought that was weird, I read the caption several times but did not understand it. But it was that photgraph that really sparked my curiosity.
Fast forward about a decade, I find myself in my college library, I forget what i was looking for but I know what I found. Another picture of a virilized infant. This time I could understand the caption. This was about 1995 and the internet was relatively new, so I looked up Congenital Adrenal Hypertrophy (as it was described in the book) and the world of CAH was opened up to me. And of course this lead me toward other conditions like AIS ect... I read about the proceedure to "fix" girls or children born intersexed (once again ANY condition were the sex is not readily apparent, regardless of underlying cause). And it was at that point I took my stance against surgery, after further research I now say, no surgery for cosmetic reasons.
By the time i was senior a friend of mine did a report on intersexed conditions. The class was visible grossed out by the images. I was not, by this time I have see so many ambiguous sets of genitals it did not bother me one bit. I was convinced at that time people would be happy whith what they are born with and surgery shopuld not be done for cosmetic reasons only. Of course Iknow now some people are glad to have the surgery.
One of the reasons I come here is to get an understanding from people who have to live with this on a daily basis. My knowleged on intersexed in general is very broad and covers alot of different condidtions. I don't know the exact specifics of any one condition (danny and most others here know a lot more about CAH than I do) but I like to come here and learn and impart my 2 cents when possible. Another thing about CAH is that it has a whole lot more support on the web. I have been to the AIS site, "Bodies like ours" last time I was there they did not have an interactive message board such as this, but i do like to read the personal stories and sometimes I get angry when I read how the drs lied about the matter, covered up the evidence or used the ignorance of the patient and the parent to perpetuate a false truth. I am not yet a Dr, but doesn't the Hippocratic Oath say someything about "Not causing harm"
for example one personl account states the Surgeons told the patients parents that gonald tissue was removed. The family doctor recieved a copy of all the lab reports ect... and told the patients parents that "she" had XY genes and was therefore destine to be a man under ideal prenatal circumstances. The surgery was to remove the testicles. The parents were obviously confused because the surgeons never mentioned the genes or testicles being removed. The family Dr explained that gonald tissue and testiclur tissue can and does mean the same thing in this case.
Okay, let me stop before I really get flustered. But in a long round about way, that is how I got interested in CAH and all other conditions officially classed as intersexed. I sometimes wonder why I have this vast amount of trivial sexual knowlege. (trivial to most people anyway) One on my Chirstian friends told me I have this knowlege a reason and it may turn out I use it to help someone in the future. That has yet to seen but i don't question "the man upstairs"
