Aa
KNOW THIS, is could be the treatment nobody wants to give you, that will save you
This in not quackery it could change your life, it's modern not alternative medicine.
I will try to keep it simple.
one thing that happens as we age is we begin to lose our ability to make growth hormone.
this hormone is produced in the pituitary and is ESSENTIAL to tissue repair which occurs mostly at night in 3rd and particularly 4th stage sleep.
the goal of treatment is not just to kill the virus but to see the liver repair itself.
FOR SOME REASON Hepatitis can stop the pituitary from functioning.
If this happens the disease progresses rapidly, and you feel far worse than your years with lots of odd ailments popping up.
The test you need to ask for is called an IGF-1.
It stands for Insulin Growth Factor 1.
this is an initial test, since Growth Hormone (GH) is almost impossible to measure (it is produced in such miute amounts for only minutes each day, and particularly each night.) but the IGF-1 is easy to measure, an inexpensive blood test, and it's level indicated if any GH had been prodiced in the last 24 hrs.
If you have trouble sleeping or dreaming it's quite possible you are low on this hormone.
If you have autoimmune stuff, or trouble healing or exaustion same thing. Thyroid, arthritis, vitilago, fibromyalgia, even MS, where the body attacks the nerve sheath, and many more things are directly related. the pituitary is the MASTER gland which tell the others what to do. It's like the General, the thyroid is the next in command and on down. Our pancreas, our sex glands, are all part of this glandular system. when one thing breaks, then everything begins to break down.
Children who produce no GH age in ten years to about age 80, with all the accompanying pain. this disease is called progeria.
However, aldult onset GH loss is called Pituitary Dwarfism.
for some reason HEP people are often low in it.
In our teens our IGF-1 number should be about 400, this is because we are growing rapidly.
By age 50-60 150-200 is in normal range, depending on the lab.
If you are low on this test, most insurances will allow for a further test, (expensive) to prove you aren't making enough or any GH. My number was 40. I'm in my mid-fifties, so this number should be seen at 90 years of age. This lowering of GH is considered a key in why we age and develop disease.
You have to go to a good endocrinologist to get this testing.
MY doctor insisted I couldn't have this, but I bypassed her for the initial testing, after 2 years of arguing, and sure enough....
the only draw back to this therapy, side effect wise, is it can mess with blood sugar, leading to diabetes. the idea is JUST to bring you up to normal, NOT turn you into Barry Bonds, or use it as a fountain of youth. It does have profound effects on the thyroid, mine is working agin for the first time in 30 years, and my fibromyalgia is gone.
there is a great deal of research now into whether this is a key to most autoimmune stuff, and Merck and others have come up with several oral secetouges (drugs that stimulate production of GH)
The trouble now is, it's expensive because the only REAL known treatment is the injection of the actual hormone, a 191 chain protein, very delicate, and the cost is 800-1200 per month. Naturally they don't want to test or inform us that this drug may be a key factor in healing, and the race is on with all the companies to see who can make the first inexpensive oral form of this hormone.
Bets are off as to the billions whoever wins this race will glean. But I put myself in a stage 3 trial just to get the oral until I could jump through all the insurance, waits for specialist and testing, and approval etc.
Before getting this drug, I couldn't go to sleep thinking I would wake up. Exaustion doesn't cover what I felt. Sometimes showering, dressing, and getting to the car felt like a marathon race the day after.
So, enough said. Do not expect docs to inform you of all this, but there is a plethora of stuff on pubmed which is how I found and diagnosed myself, looking the key to the fibromyalgia (before I discovered that I also had Hep C.)
I hope you all take this advice seriously. It's true, and I did my homework!!
PS, If you have ever had a head of neck injury from an auto accident you are also at greater risk of having this deficiency since whiplash can bruise or even shove this glands location, resulting in impaired function. I was never told of this either. Thank God for forums and Pubmed.
Take this seriously people. Even autoimmune attacks on the brain are part of this syndrome, I'm dealing with all of this, and don't want anyone else going undiagnosed.
PPS. I have 2 endocrinologists now, both willing to subscribe me growth hormone and the insurance pays, times are changing. they can only keep us in the dark so long, and now that I don't have to go to the library to read the New England Journal of Medicine, and Jama etc, it's just gotten a whole lot easier for us all!!
there are more doctors willing to fight to get you treatment if the insurance denies or balks.
there is also a program through Lilly Pharmaceutical now, to help fight the denials, they make the brand called Humatrope which I am on. Because of this, and my low number, I breezed through the normal "fight" some insurances give people.
Thank the Lord, and may this, my trial, PLEASE bless you all.
I will try to keep it simple.
one thing that happens as we age is we begin to lose our ability to make growth hormone.
this hormone is produced in the pituitary and is ESSENTIAL to tissue repair which occurs mostly at night in 3rd and particularly 4th stage sleep.
the goal of treatment is not just to kill the virus but to see the liver repair itself.
FOR SOME REASON Hepatitis can stop the pituitary from functioning.
If this happens the disease progresses rapidly, and you feel far worse than your years with lots of odd ailments popping up.
The test you need to ask for is called an IGF-1.
It stands for Insulin Growth Factor 1.
this is an initial test, since Growth Hormone (GH) is almost impossible to measure (it is produced in such miute amounts for only minutes each day, and particularly each night.) but the IGF-1 is easy to measure, an inexpensive blood test, and it's level indicated if any GH had been prodiced in the last 24 hrs.
If you have trouble sleeping or dreaming it's quite possible you are low on this hormone.
If you have autoimmune stuff, or trouble healing or exaustion same thing. Thyroid, arthritis, vitilago, fibromyalgia, even MS, where the body attacks the nerve sheath, and many more things are directly related. the pituitary is the MASTER gland which tell the others what to do. It's like the General, the thyroid is the next in command and on down. Our pancreas, our sex glands, are all part of this glandular system. when one thing breaks, then everything begins to break down.
Children who produce no GH age in ten years to about age 80, with all the accompanying pain. this disease is called progeria.
However, aldult onset GH loss is called Pituitary Dwarfism.
for some reason HEP people are often low in it.
In our teens our IGF-1 number should be about 400, this is because we are growing rapidly.
By age 50-60 150-200 is in normal range, depending on the lab.
If you are low on this test, most insurances will allow for a further test, (expensive) to prove you aren't making enough or any GH. My number was 40. I'm in my mid-fifties, so this number should be seen at 90 years of age. This lowering of GH is considered a key in why we age and develop disease.
You have to go to a good endocrinologist to get this testing.
MY doctor insisted I couldn't have this, but I bypassed her for the initial testing, after 2 years of arguing, and sure enough....
the only draw back to this therapy, side effect wise, is it can mess with blood sugar, leading to diabetes. the idea is JUST to bring you up to normal, NOT turn you into Barry Bonds, or use it as a fountain of youth. It does have profound effects on the thyroid, mine is working agin for the first time in 30 years, and my fibromyalgia is gone.
there is a great deal of research now into whether this is a key to most autoimmune stuff, and Merck and others have come up with several oral secetouges (drugs that stimulate production of GH)
The trouble now is, it's expensive because the only REAL known treatment is the injection of the actual hormone, a 191 chain protein, very delicate, and the cost is 800-1200 per month. Naturally they don't want to test or inform us that this drug may be a key factor in healing, and the race is on with all the companies to see who can make the first inexpensive oral form of this hormone.
Bets are off as to the billions whoever wins this race will glean. But I put myself in a stage 3 trial just to get the oral until I could jump through all the insurance, waits for specialist and testing, and approval etc.
Before getting this drug, I couldn't go to sleep thinking I would wake up. Exaustion doesn't cover what I felt. Sometimes showering, dressing, and getting to the car felt like a marathon race the day after.
So, enough said. Do not expect docs to inform you of all this, but there is a plethora of stuff on pubmed which is how I found and diagnosed myself, looking the key to the fibromyalgia (before I discovered that I also had Hep C.)
I hope you all take this advice seriously. It's true, and I did my homework!!
PS, If you have ever had a head of neck injury from an auto accident you are also at greater risk of having this deficiency since whiplash can bruise or even shove this glands location, resulting in impaired function. I was never told of this either. Thank God for forums and Pubmed.
Take this seriously people. Even autoimmune attacks on the brain are part of this syndrome, I'm dealing with all of this, and don't want anyone else going undiagnosed.
PPS. I have 2 endocrinologists now, both willing to subscribe me growth hormone and the insurance pays, times are changing. they can only keep us in the dark so long, and now that I don't have to go to the library to read the New England Journal of Medicine, and Jama etc, it's just gotten a whole lot easier for us all!!
there are more doctors willing to fight to get you treatment if the insurance denies or balks.
there is also a program through Lilly Pharmaceutical now, to help fight the denials, they make the brand called Humatrope which I am on. Because of this, and my low number, I breezed through the normal "fight" some insurances give people.
Thank the Lord, and may this, my trial, PLEASE bless you all.
no offense, but these kind of studies offend me.
>>>>9 people...4 alcoholics and kids with CLD (un deaths door basically)
and from this they conclude this hormone is evil.
first of all any double blind with under ten people is suspect..
standard protocol is 100 people.
second, lipod prqfiles and insulin resisyance are all going to be way different in alcoholics or 5 children with CJD (totally shot livers) than the average populace. Obviously the liver acts differently if it totally cirrotic or if someone keeps guzzling paint thinner.
Don't know about anyone else but this proves nada as far as what an average person taking care of themselves might expect to happen.
Honestly reddawg, you have to see the flaws in that study...., I'm surprised you aren't spending time trying to talk people who need procrit out it it......after all it's another one of those pesty enginneered protein human hormones that stimulates the marrow to make blood.
In these cases, 9 only...of the toughest known...and no measurable improvement...what did you expect...in the presence of alcohol insulin resistance always goes higher as the liver tries to detox the aceylene etc...sugar remain high.....CLD kids can't metabolize at all...once chirrosis is rock hard no one hormone is going to solve or reverse everything because the ability of HGH to work and begin a reversal of damage is based on the premise that there is some healthy tissue there to begin with.
You would not expect a thyroid to work again is it had been totally irradiated....well a liver turned entirely to solid scar tissue cannot either. The study does not even indicate what stage these kids were at....again, a study is only a good as the people running it....
so a boozer will not be helped....well now we know....
but wait..we already knew that right? The alcohol will chew you up with this virus no matter what else you do....so what is new in those observations beats me.
>>>>9 people...4 alcoholics and kids with CLD (un deaths door basically)
and from this they conclude this hormone is evil.
first of all any double blind with under ten people is suspect..
standard protocol is 100 people.
second, lipod prqfiles and insulin resisyance are all going to be way different in alcoholics or 5 children with CJD (totally shot livers) than the average populace. Obviously the liver acts differently if it totally cirrotic or if someone keeps guzzling paint thinner.
Don't know about anyone else but this proves nada as far as what an average person taking care of themselves might expect to happen.
Honestly reddawg, you have to see the flaws in that study...., I'm surprised you aren't spending time trying to talk people who need procrit out it it......after all it's another one of those pesty enginneered protein human hormones that stimulates the marrow to make blood.
In these cases, 9 only...of the toughest known...and no measurable improvement...what did you expect...in the presence of alcohol insulin resistance always goes higher as the liver tries to detox the aceylene etc...sugar remain high.....CLD kids can't metabolize at all...once chirrosis is rock hard no one hormone is going to solve or reverse everything because the ability of HGH to work and begin a reversal of damage is based on the premise that there is some healthy tissue there to begin with.
You would not expect a thyroid to work again is it had been totally irradiated....well a liver turned entirely to solid scar tissue cannot either. The study does not even indicate what stage these kids were at....again, a study is only a good as the people running it....
so a boozer will not be helped....well now we know....
but wait..we already knew that right? The alcohol will chew you up with this virus no matter what else you do....so what is new in those observations beats me.
sorry I never noticed your question or saw an alert..
your IGF-1 is age dependant, the younger you are the higher it should be
you must be in your middle age, for your norm to be that number..
as stated the 150-190 is for those in their fifties, as most HCV er's in here are....I said that a couple times, but they were long posts.
sorry for the delays response
your IGF-1 is age dependant, the younger you are the higher it should be
you must be in your middle age, for your norm to be that number..
as stated the 150-190 is for those in their fifties, as most HCV er's in here are....I said that a couple times, but they were long posts.
sorry for the delays response
Plöckinger U, Krüger D, Bergk A, Weich V, Wiedenmann B, Berg T.
Interdisziplinäres Stoffwechsel-Centrum, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Virchow-Klinikum, Berlin, Germany.
OBJECTIVES: In vitro and in vivo data indicate multiple, but contradictory effects of interferon on pituitary hormone secretion. We therefore investigated prospectively basal and stimulated pituitary hormone secretion in 21 patients with chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection before and during antiviral therapy. METHODS: Twenty-one patients received pegylated interferon-alpha plus either ribavirin or levovirin. Baseline and stimulated growth hormone (GH), cortisol, luteinizing hormone (LH), follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), prolactin (PRL), and thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) responses were measured using standard pituitary function tests, before therapy in all and during therapy in 17 out of the 21 patients. RESULTS: Before therapy 17 patients (81%) had severe GH insufficiency and 9 of these had low insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) concentrations. Basal and stimulated GH concentrations increased significantly during therapy, reducing the number of patients with severe GH insufficiency to four, but IGF-1 remained low. Basal PRL and TSH concentrations were normal before and during therapy, while thyroid-releasing hormone (TRH)-stimulated concentrations increased significantly during therapy. The adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH)/cortisol axis, basal and stimulated gonadotropin, and testosterone concentrations were normal throughout. Neither the HCV RNA level nor transaminases correlated with hormone concentrations before or during therapy. CONCLUSIONS: GH insufficiency is common in patients with chronic HCV infection. While GH secretion improves during antiviral therapy, IGF-1 remains low, indicating persistent GH resistance of hepatocytes. Whether improvement in GH secretion during treatment is due to a direct drug effect or related to the suppression of viral load could not be differentiated, as most patients demonstrated a positive virologic response.
Interdisziplinäres Stoffwechsel-Centrum, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Virchow-Klinikum, Berlin, Germany.
OBJECTIVES: In vitro and in vivo data indicate multiple, but contradictory effects of interferon on pituitary hormone secretion. We therefore investigated prospectively basal and stimulated pituitary hormone secretion in 21 patients with chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection before and during antiviral therapy. METHODS: Twenty-one patients received pegylated interferon-alpha plus either ribavirin or levovirin. Baseline and stimulated growth hormone (GH), cortisol, luteinizing hormone (LH), follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), prolactin (PRL), and thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) responses were measured using standard pituitary function tests, before therapy in all and during therapy in 17 out of the 21 patients. RESULTS: Before therapy 17 patients (81%) had severe GH insufficiency and 9 of these had low insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) concentrations. Basal and stimulated GH concentrations increased significantly during therapy, reducing the number of patients with severe GH insufficiency to four, but IGF-1 remained low. Basal PRL and TSH concentrations were normal before and during therapy, while thyroid-releasing hormone (TRH)-stimulated concentrations increased significantly during therapy. The adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH)/cortisol axis, basal and stimulated gonadotropin, and testosterone concentrations were normal throughout. Neither the HCV RNA level nor transaminases correlated with hormone concentrations before or during therapy. CONCLUSIONS: GH insufficiency is common in patients with chronic HCV infection. While GH secretion improves during antiviral therapy, IGF-1 remains low, indicating persistent GH resistance of hepatocytes. Whether improvement in GH secretion during treatment is due to a direct drug effect or related to the suppression of viral load could not be differentiated, as most patients demonstrated a positive virologic response.
thanks.....I just got another "oh really" from a doctor whom I told HCV may have caused my pituitary to shut down.
there is not general knowledge of this connection even though the research is clear.
If you stop to think about it when do you most need to repair your liver is when this virus is attacking it....so having the virus also effect the gland that commands repairs be done is a double whammy.
there is not general knowledge of this connection even though the research is clear.
If you stop to think about it when do you most need to repair your liver is when this virus is attacking it....so having the virus also effect the gland that commands repairs be done is a double whammy.
I am reading this in cross correlation with my issues going on Post TX - and possibly Interferon based reaction.
I'm trying to glean as much information re the symptoms as possible prior to going in.
I HATE when the doctors don't know ANYTHING about what is going on --- and the second thing I hate is knowing more than the doctor about what is going on...
And even worse - I hate a doctor who doesn't know anything yet proceeds to tell me what to do.
I think doctors have forgotten that THESE ARE OUR BODIES...
We live in them
We know what is going on --- LOL!
OK - maybe some of us do... ROFLMAO!
Anyhow --- I wanted to say that this is quite an interesting discussion --- and I very much thank you all for participating...
Reddawg's questioning prompted some decent responses... And Merrybe - the work you have done on research is quite nice.
Meki
I'm trying to glean as much information re the symptoms as possible prior to going in.
I HATE when the doctors don't know ANYTHING about what is going on --- and the second thing I hate is knowing more than the doctor about what is going on...
And even worse - I hate a doctor who doesn't know anything yet proceeds to tell me what to do.
I think doctors have forgotten that THESE ARE OUR BODIES...
We live in them
We know what is going on --- LOL!
OK - maybe some of us do... ROFLMAO!
Anyhow --- I wanted to say that this is quite an interesting discussion --- and I very much thank you all for participating...
Reddawg's questioning prompted some decent responses... And Merrybe - the work you have done on research is quite nice.
Meki
I have my IGF1 results back.
I'm 36 years old and have tested positive for HepC for 15 years, my own estimate of when I was infected puts it at 21 years.
I came in with an IGF1 of 94.
You posted that at 50-60yrs 150-200 is in normal range, depending on the lab. This lab had a suggested range for me of 199-424.
Seems a bit wide open to me, still the test results are low. It remains to be seen whether they'll see it as low enough to bother treating. There are several other things plaguing me at the moment. My GP has made an appointment for me to discuss all these things with someone more in the know than him, then they'll decide who to send me to and what to do with me.
I'd very much appreciate some advice as to what questions I need to be asking. There are other signs that could point to pituitary malfunction, problems processing lipids, high white blood cell count and seemingly complete immunity breakdown. My appointment won't come through for about 3 weeks, (we've got junior Doctor's strikes at the moment) so no rush on the reply. My health is at a point where I need to push forward, being properly prepared means avoiding repeat appointments and possibly also unnecessary treatments. Thanks in advance. Sev.
I'm 36 years old and have tested positive for HepC for 15 years, my own estimate of when I was infected puts it at 21 years.
I came in with an IGF1 of 94.
You posted that at 50-60yrs 150-200 is in normal range, depending on the lab. This lab had a suggested range for me of 199-424.
Seems a bit wide open to me, still the test results are low. It remains to be seen whether they'll see it as low enough to bother treating. There are several other things plaguing me at the moment. My GP has made an appointment for me to discuss all these things with someone more in the know than him, then they'll decide who to send me to and what to do with me.
I'd very much appreciate some advice as to what questions I need to be asking. There are other signs that could point to pituitary malfunction, problems processing lipids, high white blood cell count and seemingly complete immunity breakdown. My appointment won't come through for about 3 weeks, (we've got junior Doctor's strikes at the moment) so no rush on the reply. My health is at a point where I need to push forward, being properly prepared means avoiding repeat appointments and possibly also unnecessary treatments. Thanks in advance. Sev.
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