Thoughts 8-24-2006

How terrible it is to doubt one's self. I know that for a long time I was told that there wasn't anything wrong with me that losing weight wouldn't cure. I was seeing one idiot doctor that thought all my troubles were because I was a hypochondriac, nothing more. I suddenly developed insomnia, and was sent to therapy because people don't just "suddenly develop insomnia." It had to be stress. After years of feeling exhausted when I would wake up, I finally got sent to a sleep clinic where low and behold, I had really bad sleep apnea, not something that could be treated with therapy.

The point is to keep pushing.

As for the cycles, one way to think about it is that your pituitary gland is like the master thermostat for your hormones. When it doesn't function right, it might flood the system one day and starve it the next day. I know for a fact that my cortisol levels do fluctuate, I went from 299 to 61 cortisol levels in 3 days, and probably dropped lower because I didn't test after the 61 level day.

Some people cycle for very long periods, months at a time where they are in different phases, while other people cycle much shorter, almost like a light switch flicking off and on. These cycles make it much more difficult to catch a High, especially if we haven't figured out how our system reacts.

And I don't think it's all that rare, just rarely diagnosed. Because one of the main symptoms of Cushing's is obesity, we are dismissed and fat and lazy.

Courage and Strength!