my acth test results

[locoboy]

acth 18.7 pg/ml

baseline: 15.7 mcg/dl cortisol
30 min 16.7 mcg/dl cortisol
60 min 15.4 mcg/dl

my endo said my results were abnormal and i had to do the test one more time??

[pacaplace]

We must be typing at the same time.  You and I have quite a few of the same sypmtoms... They did a brain MRI on me and it showed that I have "Empty Sella syndrome" and a "bent pituitary stalk".  According to my PCP, this showed that my pituitary may not be working at 100%.  It also explained why my problems at the time were intermittent.  I sure whould suggest you talk to your doc about getting a Brain CT or MRI to make sure that there is nothing structurally wrong with your pituitary gland.  Pituitary problems deffinitely can effect your vision and all your other issues.

[pacaplace]

OOPS.  I guess you did write some of your symptoms down.  Hey, it's early in the day for me :) Okay, now I have a few questions....

Are you on any meds, either prescribed or supplements or recreational, including alcohol intake?
Have you had a brain MRI or CAT scan to check out your pituitary gland to make sure it looks okay?
How's your liver function?
How are your electrolyes?
Have you had any other hormones tested and what were their results (Growth hormones, sex hormones, thyroid hormones, etc)?
Have you had an hs-CRP?  This measures inflammation.  If it's really high (over 8 or 10, depending on the lab) then that can point to a possible autoimmune disease.
Have you had changes in your libido? (can be caused by several hormone issues).
Do you have chronic pain (joints, muscles, etc)?
What kind of diet do you have?  Do you crave sugar, salt, fat?  What type of food helps you feel better?
What are your sleep habits?  Do you practice good sleep hygeine?  Do you have sleep apnea?  Do you work swing shifts?  Do you travel to different time zones a lot?

The list could go on, but all these things matter.  There's so many things to evaluate when you are trying to pinpoint a disease or syndrome.... Especially when your symptoms aren't present 100% of the time.  Trust me, I know.  After years of intermtitent symptoms, they finally became constant and then my PCP was able to get closer to my diagnosis, despite the Endo doc.

[locoboy]

so monday i have a appointment with doctor, just my general doctor...so its my last ditch effort to convince her maybe we need to investigate more....is there any other test i should ask for? other then the acth test

[locoboy]

also they did test my sodiom and pottasium levels at the time of test

which were:

sodium 139 [135-149]

potassium 3.5 [3.5-5.5]

[locoboy]

symptoms i have had, pallor, palpatations, bad pounding headaches which i never got before, irregular heart beat, flutters, diarrehea, nausea bad, ive had recorded low blood pressure around 65/50 , upper back pain, pain in hands, wrist, arms, shocks in abdomen, dizzyness, tingling in feet...other symptoms i just dont remember, its been 10 months and the first symptom i ever got was blurry vision

[pacaplace]

This seems kind of odd.  Since your basline cortisol was so high, yet not over normal, just maybe your adrenals didn't stimulate more because you have other hormones that regulate things, too.  I mean to say that your basline was great if it was in the morning.  When it got artifically stimulated, maybe your HPA Axis is working well enough to say "Hey, I don't need this much at this time and so I'm not putting out any more cortisol." or maybe, your adrenals have been pumping out so much lately that they just couldn't produce anymore.  It also depend on which ACTH Stim test you got.  There are two that I know of.  There's a high dose and a low dose ACTH test.  From what I've read, the low dose test may be more accurate.  That being said, none of these tests ALONE are 100% conclusive for a diagnosis of a disease.  Plus, are you stressed out about all this medical stuff?  That can mess up the test results, too.  I know I'm not answering your question very well because I just don't know why your cortisol didn't rise.  Plus, most of the info I've read has said that the cortsol only needs to rise "11" units during the test, not double, so I'm not sure what to say about that.

Sorry.  I KNOW how frustating this is for you.  We've all had to fight for a long time to get answers and just getting cortisol tests don't always answer those questions.  Do you have other "signs and symptoms"?  I've got a little energy left so I'll bounce around the forums here and see if you've written about them.  If you haven't, maybe you could tell us how you're feeling and what started your cortisol quest?