What a relief...
- Thread starter Natterg
- Start date
darknight
Well-known member
Jezza- wat are catecholamines and they weren't raised at all (so much for the overactive sympathic nervous system theory
my phuysician wants to give me a thyriod test. I hope it comes bck postive so she can stop thinking my hh is mental. She is the one who diagnosed me...and then refferred me in summer of 2008 to someone who had some experinece with hh...and them after getting proof with comments about body odor she still thinks its mental...
I hate that I hope the last hh docror who did send for botox really helps me get it approved...bc I eventally want to do a fundraiser/use money frm a walk we do ever summer to help pay for my liposuction surgery.
I turned 20 in July and feel depressed when I look at cloths. I wear tshirt but want to change so I look pretty.
Jean-- I don't wear skirts only wen I have to.
Jezza
Well-known member
Catecholamines, or catechols are breakdown products of (nor)adrenaline, that are excreted in urine...by measuring the urine levels of catecholamine you can therefore measure how much adrenalin the body produces.
In the medical world it's often assumed that the SNS just 'works to hard' and therefore you start sweating a lot, since sweating is controlled by the SNS. However, this line of thinking is more the result of 'we don't really know what is the causes and this is an easy explanation' than resulting from any prove.
One of the things you would expect for instance IF the SNS was really working too hard is raised catecholamine levels, since noradrenaline is the primary neurotransmitter of the SNS...The adrenal glands are primary responsible for noradrenaline production (and are also under primary control of the SNS). There is a condition called pheochromocytoma, where people have a neuroendocrine tumor of (one or both of) the adrenal glands. This results in (often transient) excessive adrenalin production which results in excessive sweating, high BP, etc etc...
So what is/was the idea is really that people who have HH, despite not having an adrenal gland tumor, would still produce excess adrenalin (this would be the logical implication of the SNS was actually working too hard, although medics will try to question that for lack of literature on the subject...they will only believe something that is completely obvious if some other medics first tell them it's true)...and therefore, among other things, sweat too much.
You can ask your GP to have the test done, although he'll likely say pheochromocytoma is very rare. If you insist he can't really not prescribe you the test, since excessive sweating is a clear symptom of pheochromocytoma, especially if you got some high bp to boot.
In the medical world it's often assumed that the SNS just 'works to hard' and therefore you start sweating a lot, since sweating is controlled by the SNS. However, this line of thinking is more the result of 'we don't really know what is the causes and this is an easy explanation' than resulting from any prove.
One of the things you would expect for instance IF the SNS was really working too hard is raised catecholamine levels, since noradrenaline is the primary neurotransmitter of the SNS...The adrenal glands are primary responsible for noradrenaline production (and are also under primary control of the SNS). There is a condition called pheochromocytoma, where people have a neuroendocrine tumor of (one or both of) the adrenal glands. This results in (often transient) excessive adrenalin production which results in excessive sweating, high BP, etc etc...
So what is/was the idea is really that people who have HH, despite not having an adrenal gland tumor, would still produce excess adrenalin (this would be the logical implication of the SNS was actually working too hard, although medics will try to question that for lack of literature on the subject...they will only believe something that is completely obvious if some other medics first tell them it's true)...and therefore, among other things, sweat too much.
You can ask your GP to have the test done, although he'll likely say pheochromocytoma is very rare. If you insist he can't really not prescribe you the test, since excessive sweating is a clear symptom of pheochromocytoma, especially if you got some high bp to boot.
Last edited: