Pituitary tumors can grow quickly and be aggressive, showing signs and symptoms rapidly. While other tumors can grow slowly, causing signs and symptoms to develop and progress slowly over several years. The longer the Growth hormones and IGF -1 stay in your system the more damage it causes.
The doctors dont know how long Ive had my tumor, but according to my symptoms the doctors thinks Ive had the tumor that has caused me to have Acromegaly or the Acromonster for about 8 years now.
Because my tumor didn't start growing til I was an adult I have Acromegaly, if I were younger and the tumor started I would of be a Giant.
Even though I'm not tall in stature I am still growing, I'm just not growing in height, certain parts of me are growing while the rest of me is staying the same. Causing this disease to be almost debilitating and a daily struggle to continue living a "normal" life and at times leaves me frustrated, in pain but it makes me push myself that much harder to stay as normal as possible.
Some days I have good days and some days I have bad daysThe symptoms can be divided into 2 groups at this point, one being the effects of the tumor pressing on the surrounding tissues. Two being the excess growth hormone GH and the IGF-1 in the blood stream (and vary from person to person):
(I got allot of this information from my own experience and allot of other info from different websites and I don't have time to cite right now, Ill probably add that later, the pictures from google)
First Symptoms due to local mass effects of the tumor, depending on the size of the tumor:
- Headaches and visual field defects are the most common symptoms. Visual field defects depend on which part of the optic nerve pathway is compressed. Headaches and partial loss of vision are the common symptoms
- Tumor damage to the pituitary stalk might cause hyperprolactinemia due to loss of inhibitory regulation of prolactin secretion by the hypothalamus. Damage to normal pituitary tissue can cause deficiencies of glucocorticoids, sex steroids, and thyroid hormone.
- Loss of end organ hormones is due to diminished anterior pituitary secretion of corticotropin (ie, adrenocorticotropic hormone [ACTH]), gonadotropins (eg, luteinizing hormone [LH], follicle-stimulating hormone [FSH]), and thyrotropin (ie, thyroid-stimulating hormone [TSH]).
Symptoms due to excess of GH/IGF-I:
People that suffer from Giantism go through there own set of emotional and physical problems, people with Giantism are in pain daily. Despite what people think people with Giantism are not physical strong at all, there bones are brittle and there muscles are weakened. - Increased incidence of glucose intolerance or frank diabetes mellitus, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease
- Increase risk of different Cancers caused by excessive and prolonged GH and IGF-1 in the body
- Memory loss, forgetfulness and the ability to focus and concentrate,impaired thought process
- Soft tissue swelling of internal organs, notably the heart with attendant weakening of its muscularity and the kidneys
- Enlarged liver, heart, kidneys, spleen and other organs
- Increased incidence of congestive heart failure, which might be due to uncontrolled hypertension or to an intrinsic form of cardiomyopathy attributable to excess GH/IGF-I.
- Shortness of breath
- Chest pain
- Palpitations or rapid heart beat
- Easy fatigue, decreased muscle strength (weakness)
- Poor exercise tolerance
- Brittle bones, low bone density
- Back pain, Arthritis, limited joint movement, swelling of the bony areas around a joint
- Pain, numbness, tingling, or weakness in hands and wrists (carpal tunnel)
- vocal cords, husky voice due to enlarged vocal cords and sinuses resulting in a characteristic thick, enlarged tongue deep voice and slowing of speech
- Reduced sex drive and in men erectile dysfunction
- Abnormalities of the menstrual cycle and sometimes breast discharge in women
- Infertility
- frequent bladder infections
- Increased thirst or urination
- Difficulty breathing during sleep (sleep apnea), severe snoring and frequent brief interruptions in night time breathing (sleep apnea) due to tissue swelling that blocks your upper airway, causing poor sleep and excessive sleepiness during the day
- Nausea
- Loss of smell and taste
- Irritability, anger easily,moodiness and Depression
- Fatigue
- Vertigo/Dizzyness
- Fainting
- Running into objects, bumping into walls and people
- A symptom where a person is intolerant to changes of temperature particularly heat, hot flashes
Physical changes:
- Soft tissue swelling visibly resulting in enlargement of the, nose, lips and ears.
- Generalized expansion of the the skull at the fontanelle's. Pronounced brow protrusion, often with ocular distension
Increase in ring size or tightness of rings (due to hand swelling, sausage like fingers.) increase in shoe size (due to foot swelling. Thickened skin, especially on palms of hands or soles of feet Enlarged hands and feet, widened fingers or toes due to skin over growth with swelling, redness, and pain
- Increased chest size causing the appearance of a barrel chest
- Small skin outgrowths skin tags, thickening of the skin, skin is oily are possible markers for colonic polyps. Patients with acromegaly are also at increased risk for polyps of the colon that can develop into cancer.
- Excess hair growth in females
- Weight gain (unintentional)
- Increased perspiration accompanied with body odor
- Hypertrichosis, hyperpigmentation, and hyperhidrosis may occur
- oiliness, acne
- excessive ear wax
- Teeth and Jaw problem TMJ, New overbite, under bite, or spreading out of teeth
Through my daily struggle seems hard at times and my bad days are BAD, I am thankful that with this I have been given the gift of waking up with my good days and really being able to appreciate MY good days, because now my average days are good and my good days are heavenly. I was given the gift to understand whats really important in life. What it really means to live.
I think people that are "sick" and survive really understand what it means to live.
My Life Lesson:
Remember its not just my physical appearance I have to worry about its the effects this has taken on my inside.
Just because people look healthy on the outside doesn't mean their healthy on the inside whether mental, emotionally,physically. Try to remember to be compassionate daily.
