Found this interesting article......

[Magician]

I was snooping around on another website and found this very informative scientific article!

 

http://www.nih.gov/news/pr/sep2002/nichd-09.htm

 

I hope you all find it as interesting reading as I did!

 

Angie

[~MaryO~]

Thanks, Angie!

[Guest Lynne Clemens]

What a great article, Angie!  We talked about some of these things at UVA.  Wish I'd had this before I went so I could bring it up at the conference.

[~MaryO~]

Hold those thoughts for 18 months, Lynne

[Marie-Claude]

Very interesting article...Thanks Angie. It's funny; whenever I read about this, I now feel guilty that I may have been the one to bring this awful disease upon myself! Some say I should not think like that. That it's not my fault that I got sick...I just can't help but believe that somehow I did contribute to it.

 

MC :con:

[Valerie]

Great article and thanks for printing it out for us. ?I spoke to Dr. Chrousos when I was going through the diagnosis stage of pit cushings and he was wonderful. ?He referred me to UCSF in San Fran and helped me tremendously. ?I called and told his secretary I was a cushing patient and they put me right through to him. ?He diagnosed me on the phone with my dexamethasone suppression cortisol and ACTH numbers, told me I had a pit tumor before I even had the MRI. ?He's brilliant. Call him in Bethseda Maryland if you have any questions. ?He is a pediatrician but also deals with adults and endocrinology. ?I too believe my years of worrying about my son's rare disease and immortality created my worry tumor I call it. Now I've learned that worrying and stress do create much more harm than good and that we can control it with alternative means, yoga, exercise, diet, sleep, etc.

[GoodIdeaLady]

MC, we are not "guilty" of causing ourselves to be ill just because past experiences altered our response to stress.  Example: Some people "have a bad back" and must limit certain activities, including when someone asks for help to move something, to honestly say, "I'd like to, but I can't.  I have a bad back.  Maybe (another person) could help you with that." They know that trying to do the task would injure them.  The person may have gotten the bad back originally because they lifted something wroing, so you could say it was "their fault" that they got and still have this problem, but they didn't ask for it and I'm sure don't want it.  If they knew at the time the action would create the problem, they would not have done it, if they could have avoided it.  But maybe the bad back was caused by a car accident of which they were a passenger... NOW, let me translate that into getting Cushing's and the article:  We may or may not have been in control of what started it.  We don't want it.  We can only semi-control the exaggerated / sensitive stress response.  We have to accept we have the problem and adjust our lifestyle, including a polite, "SORRY, BUT NO" to many requests that normal healthy people could do. It is a lifelong condition that we must compensate for and do the best we can.

 

PS I have noticed that people who make big attitude and lifestyle changes to cut their "to do" lists to one-tenth of before AND are not feeling guilty but are instead relaxed and happy also seem to be the ones who do NOT regrow tumors.  The ones who insist on trying to be Super Wonderful Superwoman  DO seem to have tumor regrowth.

 

I think that falls in line with the studies = stress flips on the switch and it doesn't get switched off when it is supposed to, and even "minor" stresses can flip it.

 

But remember the "pink elephant" joke were you are told to "not think about pink elephants" and of course because someone mentions that image, you can't help  having it pop into your mind.  Telling yourself to not get stressed is equally difficult.

[Kristy]

Good point.. Tammy Goode. There is some research that discusses the incidence of these tumors is  higher in patients who have had a family member that has clinical depression or alcoholism too. I cringed when I read that. I am not a high stress person...but I do have that depression and alcoholism tendency on one side of my family.

 

Perhaps with that tendency there and when a series of motions went into effect during a time in my life and some of those amino acid and chemical messenger switches did get stuck in the "on position"... and even though I have made lifestyle changes and I don't drink, don't smoke, have a stable marriage, and a good job... it wasn't enough to overcome.

 

I spend quite a bit of time working through the mental aspects of having pitutiary disease just so I can function. I don't blame myself or others around me. I had a hard time when I was told I had one pituitary tumor. I had a hard time adjusting when I was tested for Cushings the first year. I was really thrown for a loop when I was told I had the stalk tumor and the stalk thickening and I am still wondering what lies ahead. Part of me wants to tell the whole bunch to take a long walk off the deep end and leave me alone... that I've had enough.

 

Tammy Goode, why do I have to see how it is on your side of the fence? I appreciate your point of views on matters ever so much as I continue through my own journey.

 

In short... don't blame yourself for what was... but do try to do what you can to heal yourself the best you can. You do have to live in the present. The healing process is a mind body spirit process. I am learning though, that it begins at diagnosis.

 

You are not a victim... you are a survivior.

 

Always remember that the doctors that research us patients have never walked a mile in our shoes... they just tie our shoelaces. There is so much medical science just does not know.

[Guest Cherri]

Hmmmm....this confuses me more than ever.  Every time I went to the doctor they kept telling me all my problems stemmed from stress (to the point where I think if I had walked in with a broken arm it would have been blamed on stress).  I just always took what they said with a grain of salt.  The reason?  I had always been one of those that never got stressed out about anything.  As a matter of fact I thrived in most situations that people find stressful.  Public speaking?  Give me a podium and I am a ham.  I always have looked at everything with a "glass is half full" perspective.  I was rarely in a bad mood -- my husband had even nicknamed me "Happy Face."  So, in a situation like that could I have just been internalizing everything?  I had never really been in a TRUE stressful situation until two years ago (some marital problems that were worked through -- all is fine now).  The strange thing is -- when I was put under that stress my adrenaline really kicked in.  My acne cleared up, my hair looked fine, my energy level skyrocketed and my weight dropped to 159 pounds.  The bad side was everything I ate either came back up or went straight through me, I couldn't focus or concentrate, and I became extremely agitated and confrontational.  I had to take Wellbutrin for a while because I was zoning out at times.  For instance I was on my way to work one morning and found myself pulling into the mall instead (which is in the opposite direction).  I found myself sitting in my car thinking, "Why in the world am I here at the mall at 7:45 a.m.?"  So, that is how I compare stresses.  

 

Cherri in AL

[GoodIdeaLady]

:B: ? Unfortunately, if we were NOT ?so apparently good at handling stress, we would have actually gotten more ?useful help. ?Think of the last time you saw someone dissolve into tears and act emotional. ?Hopefully, they got sympathy and the opportunity to recover.

 

I was called "Sunshine" at ?one ?job; at another ?my computer password that the Network Administrator assigned, aaying he did it matching them to personalities, was, "Optimitist". ?Try typing THAT in first thing in the morning when all the screen shows is ++++++++++ ?! ?

 

Even the counselors I have seen say I'm "not depressed" [clinically] even when inside I have been feeling suicidal! :but:

 

Appearing to the world to be coping well, and even convincing ourselves that we are, DOES internalize things, and also can prevent us from getting the "time out" and comforting that we would otherwise get.

 

I have noticed that Cushie's tend put more on their plate [responsibilities, eg work, school, family, church] than NORMAL ?people. ?We tend to feel we should and can do it all. ?And we love it and are proud of it, and feel we have really helped others --- and we have! ?But at what cost to ?ourselves? ?And how can we do more in the future if we don't scale down so we can be healthy? ?Looking at Lorrie's week in the Week End Check In 68 ?postings is a good example of what many of us are demanding of ourselves.

 

Certain personality characteristics have been linked to heart attacks and heart disease. ?I think the same is true for Cushing's. ?Medication, surgery, and lifestyle changes were required for the first grouping, and I feel the same 3 items are needed treatment for Cushies. :exclaim: