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A patient journey filled with courage and inspiration…
Hypopituitarism – Bob
Late in 2001, I had my 18-year old coronary bypass grafts reworked.
The procedure had its problems and I was on life support for 4 days. Whilst the operation was successful, I didn’t fully recover and my health slowly deteriorated. Over the next 4 years I was referred to various specialists to try to get an answer without any improvement.
By 2005, all my joints were aching, my brain was ‘foggy’, was continuously tired and had cognitive issues. I would fall ill very easily and take some time to recover. My performance at work suffered a as result. Any stress would result in a horrible feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach.
Early 2006, I hit my shin on a tow-bar and the wound wouldn’t heal.
I went to a GP whom I hadn’t seen for a while. She took one look at me and said that I had a bigger issue to address. I possibly had a thyroid problem. I had a quick blood test and she sent me to my cardiologist to start immediately on thyroxine. He referred to my present Endocrinologist
At that time, my heart was just ticking over at around 30bpm. When I started on Thyroxine, it would suddenly spike up to 170bpm for a short time. It was somewhat scary at the time but after a few weeks it settled down to a ‘normal’ level.
The endocrinologist said that I had the classic appearance of someone who has hypopituitarism and arranged for me to have a series of blood tests.
The results were “strongly suggestive of hypopituitarism”.
Until that time, I didn’t even know that I had a pituitary gland!
I was sent for an MRI and had other tests to check what was happening.