Hi all. After three years of suffering with not feeling well, I finally found some info here and online that led me to seek out an endocrinologist who understood Cushing's. I saw here on Wed this week for the first time, and she ordered a battery of blood work, plus the midnight saliva test and the overnight dexamethasone suppression screening test. It's the last one that got me scared.
I took the 1 mg pill at 11 pm, and at about 4 am I awoke with a weird cramp in my upper right chest. I went to pee and came back to bed, and started noticing tingling and numbness and pins and needles (yes, all of these, in and out) going down my left arm. I just observed it for a bit, wasn't thinking anything of it and then remembered, "Oh hey, that's maybe a sign of something..." and I sat up to get out of bed. When I put my feet on the floor, my pulse started banging in my ears. I put my fingers up to my throat to feel my pulse, and it must've been 120 beats per minute.
Needless to say, an ambulance was called. They took my vitals and said I was having a panic attack. I was like (excuse my French), "WTF kind of panic attack is that?" I've never had anything CLOSE to that before. Since they said it was a panic attack, I didn't go to the hospital.
I spoke to my Endo who insisted I follow up with my PCP, which I did. For the first time, she understood all my symptoms of the last three years as I explained the Endo was doing a Cushing's work-up. What has been/is most concerning to me is the idea that rather than a pituitary or adrenal tumor, I may have a lung tumor...would that explain why the steroid pill and subsequent increase in cortisol gave gave me a constricting feeling in the chest (and the numbness down the arm?). One of my on-and-off symptoms the last two years has been a strange tingling and pins and needles and cold feeling (yes, all of these) in the middle of my back and down my arms.
So the PCP sent me for a chest x-ray...and I suppose I will have an answer about that in the next day or two. The blood work and labs from Endo come back probably the beginning of next week (week of 25th).
I don't really know what my question is so much as I felt the need to tell a story, as incomplete as it is written here.
Thanks for listening! Best to all of you....