Partial secondary adrenal insufficiency?
Hello. I am hoping someone may be in the same boat as me. I have a history of pituitary trauma. I have had vague symptoms for the past year and a half that include nausea, vomiting, unintentional weight loss, the worst fatigue ever, general malaise, low blood pressure. I had pituitary testing done which only revealed low (5) (normal range is 6-60)ACTH hormone. I am a medical lab scientist and know that I need it drawn between 6 and 10 AM which I did. My cortisol drawn at the same time was 14. I was referred to endocrinology by my PCP. My endo retested, ACTH still 5 and now cortisol was 13. Collected at 9 AM. She said cortisol is within normal limits and ACTH is unstable so it doesn’t matter (despite me being the one processing the sample, immediately it’s placed on ice, centrifuged, and frozen within the hour. QUEST says it’s stable at room temp up to 16 hours, tho). A few months after these labs, I had two episodes of syncope which has never happened to me. I was hospitalized the second time to investigate if it was cardiac related as I had no prodromal symptoms . It appeared to not be related. I messaged my endo about this and we retested. Now my ACTH hormone is undetectable and my cortisol was 11. Both drawn at 830 AM. Endo again says cortisol is within normal limits (4-20) and the ACTH doesn’t matter. I am getting increasingly frustrated as I have every single symptom of SAI. I know partial SAI is a thing and I feel like I’m just being dismissed. I have a biology degree and understand a negative feedback loop. I feel like she’s not looking at the entire picture.. wondering if anyone else has a similar experience?