Living with Hypopituitarism

I had grown and developed exactly as a small child should. But suddenly, at the age of six-and-a-half, I completely quit growing. From the time I was six-and-a-half until I was almost 8, I didn't grow, not even a centimeter. My parents were worried but my grandparents just kept telling them, "Don't worry about it, he's fine, he'll grow when he gets good and ready." But that didn't suit my Mom and Dad. Even though my mother was a small woman, my dad was six feet tall. And they knew something wasn't right.

We went to my pediatrician and he ran all kinds of tests, but he couldn't find anything wrong. But this was back in 1968-1969 and very little was known about the condition. Dad wasn't satisfied with the doctor's inability to find the cause. During the next 2 years, we went from doctor to doctor, hospital to hospital and had hundreds of tests run. I was a scared little boy. I was poked, prodded and then poked some more. I had so much blood drawn, I'm sure it all could have filled a 50 gallon drum. Every time we got in the family car, I would ask, nervously, "Am I going to have another blood test?" You could see the hurt on my dad's face. Sometimes he'd say no, even though we were going to have more tests done, because he didn't want me to worry and be scared all the way to the hospital.

Anyway, in 1970, we wound up back in our hometown of Nashville, Tennessee (Daddy was a professional wrestler and we moved around a lot). The first thing we did when we got home was make an appointment at Vanderbilt Hospital in Nashville. More sticking and prodding. More crying. More of my parents crying.

But lo and behold, finally, a doctor by the name of Dr. Ian Burr of Vanderbilt Hospital found out what was wrong with me. I had hypopituitarism. Hypopituitarism is a condition which simply means that my pituitary gland wasn't working. The pituitary gland is reponsible for growth and development, as well as allowing all of the body's other glands to function normally. This is why I wasn't growing.

Once we found out why I wasn't growing or developing, the next step was figuring out how to treat my condition. I started taking synthroid, a synthetic thyroid replacement hormone. This would make up the thyroxin that my thyroid gland didn't make naturally. Also, since I hadn't grown at all in quite some time, Dr. Burr ordered that I start taking injections of human growth hormone, three times a week. He taught my dad how to give me the injections.

Within the first 7 months, I grew 7 inches! I continued growing at a rate of about one-half inch per month until I reached an average height of five feet, six inches. At that time, I was taken off the growth hormone injections, although I'll have to take the synthroid for the rest of my life, to make my thyroid gland continue to work.

I'm now 45 years old and lead a normal life. I've been married for almost 14 years and my wife, Cindy and I, have a beautiful, smart and healthy 8 year old daughter. I work full time, own a home and 3 cars and I'm just as able-bodied as the next guy. The only problems I have as a result of my condition are occasional extreme tiredness, occasional headache, mild joint pain (from my bones growing so fast with the growth hormone) and dry skin.

Other than that, I'm as normal as can be.