Hi & Introduction

[Guest guest]

Hi --

I just joined this group, and wanted to share my background and ask for your

pointers for going forward. I'm Sara Brumfield, a 37 year old software engineer

in Austin, Tx. I have 2 lovely daughters and a super great husband. When I'm

not exhausted, I like volunteering, cooking, reading, and learning the play the

piano. I've just received a hyperaldosterone diagnosis.

My story:

About 7 years ago, after the birth of my first daughter, I started noticing my

blood pressure was often at " pre-hypertension " levels. Since I think of myself

as a " healthy " person, this was troubling to me. When I got an iPhone a couple

years later, I started tracking these readings in iBP so I could keep tabs on

them. What I saw was a slow but clear upward trend in my blood pressure

readings, particularly the systolic ones. This prompted me to lose weight -- I

went from ~196 to 136 pounds over the course of a year (with the help of Weight

Watchers). Shortly after I started that weight loss journey, I was diagnosed

with hyperthyroidism (Grave's Disease). I got that under control

(endicrinologist #1, not so great, and #2, pretty decent), lost the weight, and

was feeling pretty great for the first time since becoming a mom. (I had

figured the fatique and memory loss from the hyperthyroidism was just the " cost "

of being a working mom.) *However*, the blood pressure still hadn't gone down,

despite losing 60 pounds!

My BP still wasn't high enough for treatment, and my hyperthyroidism was under

control (and hadn't gone into remission like I was hoping), so I got pregnant

with my 2nd child. (This was 5 years after the first, for timeline reference.)

Had child (induced about a month early because she wasn't growing enough, which

is probably not related, but who knows), got to stay home with her for 8 months.

During that time I did an annual physical with a (new) GP, and told him about

the blood pressure trends. He had me follow the DASH diet for about 6 weeks,

which I did pretty extremely (<1000 mg sodium most days) -- I found it extremely

hard to be moderate in my sodium intake. However, it " worked " , and my blood

pressure came down. At this point we had established a sodium as a cause of the

high blood pressure, however I had never been a heavy processed food eater, so I

was still a bit confused by this was the case at age 36 with very little heart

disease in my family.

Since I was no longer pregnant, I was then was told I really should kill off my

thyroid with radioiodine treatment. I did that in January of this year. After

that, my endicrinologist's office informed me that my she was leaving for

maternity leave and not planning on returning. It's a big practice (This is the

Austin Diagnostic Clinic) so they made me a followup appointment with another

endocrinologist, Dr. Kavita Juneja. The thyroid part of that appointment was

boring, but at the end she asked that most important of questions " Do you have

any other health concerns? "

I told her about the upward trending blood pressure, and showed her the pretty

graph on the iBP app, and explained about the DASH diet experiment and results.

You could see the gears turning in her head when she said " I can test you for

XXX, YYY, and ZZZ, all of which could cause sodium retention. " I wasn't very

optimistic we would find anything, but of course I said " yes. " I don't have all

the tests and results in front of me, but one of the results was high

aldosterone and low renin. A CT scan confirmed a growth/tumor on my adrenal

gland. I then did the 24 hour urine test and later the salt loading test, and

they led to a formal hyperaldosterone diagnosis (as of this morning). (This was

all done in less than 3 months, which based on the stories I've been reading is

really good!)

I have an appointment on Monday to talk about options, but both my doctor and I

are leaning towards surgery to remove the tumor. Pointers to " questions I

should ask " or " things to think about " would be appreciated.

Other symptoms I'm curious about:

1) Right before my period, my ability to sleep gets much worse -- I definitely

get the " 2AM Cortisol " rush, and I sometimes (this winter) get a sore throat

right before my period, theoretically caused by lowered progesterone (See here:

http://doctorstevenpark.com/is-your-throat-sore-just-before-your-periods).

2) When I was in labor with my second child, my blood pressure shot up

substantially. No one had any idea why, although that's obviously a lot of

physical stress.

3) When my first daughter was in utero, the ultrasound showed a growth on her

adrenal. By the time she was born, an ultrasound on her person did not show it.

Very suspicious!

Thanks for being here,

Sara