My theory, lol, autoimmunity and hormonal problems?

September 22, 2008

After seeing several doctors and being told they can't help me, move

on, I got all of my medical records and the MRI films from the local

hospital. I spent quite some time looking through my stuff and

found that I have a Chiari Malformation. Basically my cerebellum is

too low and putting pressure on my brain stem, " clogging " my spinal

cord and impeeding the flow of cerebrospinal fluid. It explains all

of my symptoms, except for the liver disease.

The pressure in my brain is high because of this. We knew it was

high before, just never knew why. The intercranial pressure (ICP)

is supposed to be 12-15 and mine was 20. Because of this my

pituitary gland has been " smashed " for lack of a better word.

Instead of being a circle shape, it looks more like a cresent moon.

The pituitary gland is responsible for controlling thyroid, adrenal,

and some female (and male for you guys) hormones. This Chiari thing

is something I was born with, just took this long to find. My

thyroid, adrenal, and womanly hormones are all messed up and now I

think it's probably because of the Chiari all along. My cortisol

level was 3.1 one day and they re-checked it and it was 8.7. 8.7 is

JUST in the normal range but for optimal health cortisol levels

should be around 24, but my doctors aren't doing anything about it.

SO, if your cortisol is low it doesn't do it's job in surpressing

the immune system, right? And then that would cause my immune

system to go nuts and cause all of these other autoimmune problems.

So, that's my theory, lol. I hope it's true because that would mean

my Chiari surgery would fix everything else. I know I will be

having surgery sometime in the near future, just not sure when and I

am excited to see how everything works after wards.

I just think it'd be super awesome if this somehow caused my PSC

too. Although I know it's unlikely. :-)

25 from Nebraska

PBC/PSC/Raynauds/Hypothyroid/Chiari

Recommended Posts