Too soon to decide about growth hormone. He's 84, so there will be a rather high threshold for putting him on daily injections. The most urgent treatments after apoplexy are cortisone and synthroid, which he's getting. I'm noticing he gets thirsty and drinks a lot, so he may also need anti-diuretic hormone. He'll get a set of labs in about a month.MachineGhost wrote:He's actually receiving HGH injections now? How old is he?WiseOne wrote: It is indeed. We all thought we were going to lose Dad, but then along came a get out of jail free card. Something wasn't adding up in the clinical picture, and I was making an absolute terror of myself to the consulting neurologist. I was positive the MRI would show a new nonsurvivable brainstem stroke, but instead it turned out to be pituitary apoplexy - an extremely rare event. Thanks to hormone replacement, he went from being completely unresponsive to nearly back to where he was before the whole episode - save for deconditioning and very limited vision, but we're all completely thrilled.
My 92-year old Grandma is back in the hospital within a month for pneumonia again. On the first stay, a small tumor on her thyroid gland was discovered via CT which is why she was hot in the head all the time and needed a small fan blowing, even in the middle of winter. All the "experts" have done about it is lower her synthetic thyroid medicine which she's apparantly been on for at least a decade.
Re your grandma....I'm confused. Clinically hyperthyroid (is she losing weight?) and on synthroid? That makes no sense!! What's her thyroid function tests? And I guess (hope) they're planning to biopsy that nodule. Most thyroid cancers are entirely benign, and at 92 it might make sense just to observe it if it's not causing a problem. But rarely they can be malignant, and since the treatment for it is really easy (radioactive iodide), it's worth finding out.
Caveat: I'm not an endocrinologist. If she's being managed by a primary care doc, you might take her to the appropriate specialist. PMDs in my humble opinion are generally worthless. I just finished chewing out my Dad's PMD for starting an antihypertensive medication on him, which is a big no-no after a stroke.