With Melissa now in recovery, the good news is she feels awful! This is a good sign that maybe the cushing's is gone with that tumor. She is managing now that she recieved her first post op dose of hydrocortisone an hour ago. Poor thing is still in quite a bit of pain and discomfort from all the rattling around done in her head. Will be moving out of recovery soon.
After going tooth by tooth, detailing what she recommends for treatment, the dentist asked, "Do you grind your teeth?" I said, "I did when I was younger, but I don't know now." She said that bruxism or teeth grinding appears to be the cause of the damage to my teeth. I asked her what causes that, and she said, stress. HELLO! I saw a dentist just last year, when I thought I chipped a tooth on a piece of hard candy. I didn't have the chipped tooth after all, but he didn't mention any of this other damage. We even discussed Cushing's because his teenage cousin had just gotten some high cortisol tests. So, I don't know if all this damage has happened in the last 12 months while my cortisol has been getting higher or not. So, I am in for $2500 of dental work plus a mouth guard, which can't be fitted until I get all the other repair work done. My dental insurances covers $1500, so I plan to pursue additional money from the medical insurance, since of courses, this problem is the results of a medical condition -- 255.0. Has anyone ever tried that? Regardless, I'm gonna try to get the medical insurance to reimburse me some of the money. Just another fight on my hands, I am sure. Many Endocrinologists believe that a single determination of eucortisolism or a single demonstration of appropriate suppression to dexamethasone excluded Cushing’s syndrome, except in what was previously thought to be the rare patient with episodic or periodic Cushing’s syndrome. We hypothesize that episodic Cushing’s syndrome is relatively common and a single test assessing hypercortisolism may not be sufficient to accurately rule out or diagnose Cushing’s syndrome and retrospectively examined the number of normal and abnormal tests assessing hypercortisolism performed on multiple occasions in 66 patients found to have mild and/or episodic Cushing’s syndrome compared to a similar group of 54 patients evaluated for, but determined not to have Cushing’s syndrome. We found that 65 of the 66 patients with Cushing’s syndrome had at least one normal test of cortisol status and most patients had several normal tests. The probability of having Cushing’s syndrome when one test was negative was 92 % for 23:00 h salivary cortisol, 88 % for 24-h UFC, 86 % for 24-h 17OHS, and 54 % for nighttime plasma cortisol. These results demonstrated that episodic hypercortisolism is highly prevalent in subjects with mild Cushing’s syndrome and no single test was effective in conclusively diagnosing or excluding the condition. Rather, the paradigm for the diagnosis should be a careful history and physical examination and in those patients in whom mild Cushing’s syndrome/disease is strongly suspected, multiple tests assessing hypercortisolism should be performed on subsequent occasions, especially when the patient is experiencing signs and symptoms of short-term hypercortisolism.
http://www.goodhormonehealth.com/symptoms/episodic%20cushings-hmr.pdf