American actress Amy Schymer recently revealed that she suffers from Cushing’s Syndrome. She opened up about the condition after being swarmed by comments about her face with fans saying it looked ‘puffier’ during recent TV interviews.
What Is Cushing’s Syndrome
According to the National Institute of Health, cushing's syndrome is a disorder that occurs when your body makes too much of the hormone cortisol over a long period of time. Cortisol is sometimes called the “stress hormone” because it helps your body respond to stress.
To understand this condition better, OnlyMyHealth team connected with Dr. Roohi Pirzada, Consultant Physician.
Symptoms of Cushing Syndrome
According to Dr Pirzada, some common symptoms in males and females are truncal weight gain, central obesity, (arms and legs thin, weight gain especially in the face), moon face, buffalo hump (fatty lump between your shoulders), stretch marks pinkish purple in colour on thighs, stomach, breasts, hips, sometimes even arms and underarms. Dr said, “People with cushing syndrome have fragile and pale skin, they get bruised very easily, that's why there is slow wound healing. They would also have acne.”
Talking about diverse symptoms in men and women, Dr Roohi said, “In women, it would be dark and thick facial and body hair, irregular menstrual cycle and even cessation of menses. Men may experience reduced fertility, lower sexual drive, and extreme tiredness.”
Some common symptoms include pain, sleeplessness, depression, headache, certain small infections, bone loss which can lead to easily fractured bones.
Causes
Taking about the causes of this condition, Dr Pirzada said, “Major cause of cushing’s syndrome is use of cortisol, glucocorticoids, these are medical managements used for medical conditions like arthritis, lupus or rheumatoid arthritis, chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases, asthmas, sometimes we even use it to osteoarthritis pain which is very severe where the patient would not go for replacement of knee or hip replacement and so on. So it is mostly due to long term use of steroids that is cortisol, especially glucocorticoid, so this is the most common cause of cushing syndrome.”
Treatment And Management
The best therapy for cushing syndrome is obviously to remove the cause, that is removing the steroids, but steroids cannot be just withdrawn, you have to taper those exogenous steroids at a certain pace so chronic exposure to steroids is going to suppress the adrenal functioning. This may take several months for the adrenal to return back to its normal functioning and recover completely, so steroids should be tapered very slowly allowing adrenal functioning to come back to normalcy at their pace.
“Radio therapy can be sometimes recommended in cushing syndrome, especially if there is any invasion of surrounding structure, tumour or a transsphenoidal surgery,” Dr Roohi said.
Recovery
Dr Pirzada said, “I would say that 50-55% people have a survival rate with recent advancement and treatment. Mortalities in cushing syndrome are mainly due to the effects of the related conditions which are associated like diabetes, blood pressure, heart disease, obesity, This prognosis gets worsened by all these comorbidities.