Thanks for your informative reply Dr. Jacobs.
In fairness to the medical profession, it wasn't "moobs" that first brought my case to the attention of the doctors. I hàve been very lucky insofar as despite having the highest reading this country (Ireland) has ever recorded, my "Moobs" are mostly due to weight gain from steroids. In fact, while I was in the coma, my weight dropped to about 10 stone. Apparently I was moob free at that time so losing the weight I regained should have some impact on my masculinity. I was also on to sachets of Testogel a day which was not administered when I was in hospital.
My main concern would be that some members here may in fact have a prolactinoma without knowing about it. Every patient is different. Extreme fatigue tends to be the most common symptom. This fatique is more than just tiredness or something you brush off as just getting older. This fatigue can be totally dusabling. Compromised eyesight can be another clue as the tumour puts pressure on the optic nerve(s). I lost and regained the sight in my left eye on 3 occasions. Head pain, especially over the eye can be another clue. This is not a headache - this is pain that requires large doses of pethadine or morphine to control. I enjoyed two stays in Galway Hospice while they tried to get control of the pain. With a mere 8 beds servicing a population of over 1.5 million people, I was extremely lucky to get a bed there - once for 26 days and again for 8. Not many patients get to stay in a hospice twice and are able to write about it a few years later!
A blood test for prolactin is easy and can be done by your gp. If further investigation is warrented, they will do an mri - specific to the pituitary gland. Most tumours come in under 1 cm. When you consider that the X0Ray "Slices" an be 1 cm apart, it is easy to get a false negative. Prolactin readings tend to be used to measure changes in size of the tumour.
The drug you refer to - "Dostinox" is a dopomine agonist and was first used to help with women's fertility. It made sense to use the same drug on men with high prolactin levels due to hormone producing pituitary tumours. A happy side effect was that they discovered it also tended to shrink the size of the tumour. Cabergoline and Bromocryptine are two other drugs that have the same effect. During my 3 month stay in hospital, I was mistakenly given 1,000 mg of dostinox a day along with a similar dosage of bromocryptine. hile I was not too happy when I found out as it has recognised side effects such as scarring of the heart valves, my tumour reduced in size from 4.2 cm to .9 cm!
While medically, my moobs are the least of my worries, from a psychological point of view, they have totally
destroyed my self confidence, made me feel like a freak - an "it" rather than a man or a woman, and on occasions, taken away my will to live. While for some people, they would view them as the butt of their sense of "humour", I think it woulod be a grave mistake to underestimate the affect they can have on some people.
I have no idea what percentage of men with moobs have them as a result of a prolactinome. I would imagine from years of research thet it is nore likely than not. Having said that, I am not a doctor and not qualified too give medical advice, only share my own experiances and opinions.
Perhaps the owners of this forum in this case would be prepared to allow me to give out the address of the pituitary tumour suppport site? I firmly believe that the members of both sites would benefit greatly from reading eachothers postings and talking to eachother.
I am slowly ploughing through the oistings here. Should anyone have any queries, they can email me at info@pituitarychat.com.
Apologies for the epic & regards,
Paul
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