ATTENTION MEDIA & OTHERS SEEKING INTERVIEWS!
If you represent a media company, are a student writing a report or anyone interested in interviewing our visitors, please seek permission (see email address at the bottom of the page) before posting your requests or emailing solicitations for any talk show, magazine, thesis, census or other interview on any message board on this site. If not, your posts WILL be removed. Please respect the privacy of our members.
re: re: re: ...I also meant to say Mar. 27th, 2007 10:19am
Thanks for your input. What makes this situation so confusing is that my daughter does NOT have a LOCAH diagnosis at this point. Her stim test went up to the carrier range, but I convinced her allergist to prescribe the pred. He is uncomfortable with that though, and has her on the lowest dose possible. So when a new endo arrived, we went to see him. He is starting from scratch, and trying to get a picture of her adrenal function. So it is not a situation of monitoring LOCAH. Ideally, she should be off of all medications, I think, to really get an accurate picture. He did check her 17 ohp levels, but I have not seen the results yet. He only told me about the high cortisol reading of 30.
What you said about your son's dose being reduced over time makes sense and is interesting. I don't believe I've heard that before, but it sounds like a good thing to mention to a dr for anyone who's been treated for a while. Did your son have an adrenal ultrasound that showed his glands were enlarged?
One thing in your post that I don't quite follow: The way I understand it, with the enzyme deficiency, the adrenals have to overwork to make enough cortisol. Without enough enzyme, large amounts of 17 ohp are produced because only a portion of that can be converted to cortisol. The excess is converted to androgens instead. So the cortisol that the body produces is not suppressing androgens, but prednisone or other steroid medication does. The steroids stop the adrenals from overproducing because there is no need for the body to keep trying to make enough cortisol. That is the way I understand it, but you are right in that people with LOCAH generally do manage to make enough cortisol, so are not prone to having crises.
