Good news!

My insurance finally approved 12 monthly visits to UCSF + 12 Sandostatin LAR injections. I really had to stay on top of them. I basically had to assume my insurance, and my primary doctor were complete idiots who don't communicate, and call them about everything constantly. But it worked :-D I should start injections next Tuesday as long as they get the med in time. Oh, and my oral GH testing was 1.3, should be <1.

UCSF Update

I'm excited to have some good news today. My doctor told me that we're going to skip the 3 weeks of daily injections and go straight to the monthly injections of Sandostatin LAR. I'm a little worried about the side effects, but as long as it works out it will be so much more convenient. I've also been taking cortef (oral hydrocortisone) and levoxyl (synthroid) prescribed by another doctor and he told me I can begin weaning off those as it doesn't appear I need them based on bloodwork. So the only med I'd need would be the injection, yay! I hate to take any drugs I don't need. I'm actually beginning to see I have more side effects than I realized thanks to the cortef most likely. Maybe I don't have fibromyalgia after all, just side effects of cortef.

I also now know my GH level based on blood tests is 7.4 ng/mL. This number may have been affected by my taking the steroid hydrocortisone. The doc says normal accepted level used to be 5 ng/mL, now it's 2 ng/mL. I'm going to do the oral glucose tolerance test for GH next week. And hopefully within 3 weeks when I return to UCSF and insurance approves I'll start on the Sando shot.