sheehan syndrome

[kevieb]

Is anyone particularly familiar with sheehan syndrome/  I was doing a little reading on it and learned that it can be mild, moderate or severe.  I also learned that it can come on within days of giving birth---or that it can take a couple of decades to come on.  I also read that it's course can be so gradual that as the hormones slowly produce less and less, it may not be obvious for some time.

I thought this condition was a cut and dry thing---you lose too much blood during delivery, it does too much damage to your pituitary and you cannot breastfeed your baby, you won't have periods, and you will not be able to get pregnant again.

I'm going somewhere with this, but i would like to know what you all know before i ask anymore questions.

[kevieb]

That is what I thought it was, too. Since I was diagnosed with central hypothyroidism, which is either very similar to hypopituitarism or the same thing--not sure which, sheehan syndrome came up once and I told her that I had had a c-section without anesthesia once because the hospital was in the middle of a highway pile-up disaster and their was no one to put me out---I got locals for the incision.

Once the baby was born, they just packed me and waited until they could get someone to put me under--they didn't want to cause me anymore misery.  I lost a lot of blood, but not enough to require a transfusion---but i remember looking at my skin and thinking i looked dead because I was so white.  I was put on a high dose of iron because of the blood loss.

The endo told me that if I had sheehan syndrome I wouldn't have been able to have anymore children----but after reading the article that said it could sometimes take decades before if came on---I'm assuming that would mean there would have been less damage----I am wondering if maybe she was wrong about that.

My MRI with contrasts didn't show anything, so the only explaination she could give me for why I had low thyroid, low cortisol, low DHEA, low testosterone, etc., was that "sometimes some cells just quit working."

It just seems a little strange that I could have a disorder that is not as common, and have it just happen because some cells decided to stop working for no apparent reason.

Maybe I'm totally off here---would sheehan syndrome have shown up on my MRI?

[rumpled]

It is basically a form of hypopituitary or panhypopitutiary - so it has ranges just like any pituitary disease.

Sadly docs do not test for it after complex deliveries.