Tuesday, May 20, 2008

GH Update

For some odd reason I'd hoped this visit would've gone well. No such luck. Went to UCSF today to see my endocrinologist. My fasting GH was 2.8 ng/mL, suppressed GH after 1 hour was 2.7 ng/mL, after 2 hours was 2.2 ng/mL. Didn't quite make it under 1 ng/mL. My IGF-1 was 464 with a reference range of 126 - 291. My doctor told me again that as far as he's concerned the assay range for the IGF-1 has been changed too much recently to use my IGF-1 level as a predictor of how well I'm doing.

So going strictly by my failed GH testing he's recommending I go up to the 30mg Sandostatin LAR, and check back with him after 3 full months on the med. Visibly I look better, more swelling has gone down with the increase in the last few months to the 20mg. But I really don't want to think of where I go from here when I find out the 30mg doesn't work. I'm sick of fighting with this disease already. I feel more like a 50 year old than a 31 year old. I'm fatigued all the time even though my thyroid and other numbers are good. My headaches have improved but I still have them quite often. I have heart palpitations sometimes but my EKG was fine. Everything seems *fine* but I don't FEEL fine. I'm still waiting to discuss my latest MRI with my doctor. But my last MRI was good and my GH was still too high. I really don't want to consider radiation and possibly damaging my pituitary gland further, but what option do I really have?