Acromegaly: The Diagnosis

I still remember the day I received a call from my primary physician. I had been with him for several years but I had never had the occassion to speak to him over the phone. If I ever called his office, I would leave a message and I would receive a response from his assistants or even the receptionist but never from him personally. To what did I owe such an honor, particularly when he begins the conversation with, "is this a good time to talk?" Sure, why not. He began to use terms that were not part of my normal vocabulary but I do remember hearing that my growth hormone levels were reportedy 14x above normal. That didn't stike me as all bad but I did agree to a CT scan to get more information. The CT scan later confirmed what the doctor had read about in text books, namely a rare condition known as Acromegaly caused by a pituitary adenoma. What did this mean? It means that I had a tumor growing near my pituitary gland. Not all tumors stimulate the gland nor does it get stimulated in the same way. In my particular case, it was stimulating it to produce excessive amounts of growth hormones (GH). Is that bad? Well, up until then I hadn't thought so. My symptoms were mostly subtle and none were life-threatening. The most annoying of symptoms was that my lower jaw grew to the extent that I now had an under-bite. It was annoying because it made chewing food difficult and sometimes I would catch the inside of my cheek instead of food but otherwise, it was of no consequence. Missing were other common symptoms found in other patients. There was no headaches to speak of, no hypertension and no impairment of vision. Generally speaking my health was above average, I was active, had plenty of energy and outside general muscle growth (which I considered healthy), there were no negative symptoms to speak of.