There has been a lot of research done on a range of brain tumors causing hypothalamic and/or pituitary dysfuction. There is also a lot of information about brain tumors of the hypothalmus and pituitary gland which cause noticable symptoms, however i would like to discuss what came first. Was it the tumor that caused the dysfuction or does the hypothalamic/pituitary dysfunction cause the tumor.
Ive read up a lot on tumors causing mood disorder symptoms and psycosis but how many people out there had these undiagnosed symptoms before the tumour was found? Did the tumor just elevate the symptoms?
How many people diagnosed with mood disorders went onto develop a tumor?
how many people undiagnosed experienced symptoms of a mood disorder before a tumor was present?
Why are mood disorders categorised as mental illness? when in many cases its quite clearly a physical illness, an issue with the brain! Easier said than done but if we can find a way to balance the hypothalamus and pituitary gland, would we not see that the majority of people diagnosed with mental illness would be living healthy lives?
Im ranting right now, i know. I dont require any real answers to these questions, i just need to unload or hopefully this will find someone who is equally interested in talking about it.
My husband has stage 4, primary glioblastoma, IDH1 mutation. This was a glioma before it became malignant. Since he was very young he had struggled with "mental health issues" no amount of medication (anti-depressants and anti-psychotics) helped him and neither did various forms of therapy. His personal relationships failed due to his fluctuating moods, and he also struggled socially. He had other symptoms too such as infertility (being able to acheive orgasm but not ejaculate), anger, the inability to sleep, dermatitis, psoriasis and not being able to put weight on (being accused of anorexia).
The reason why it is relevant is because his yougest brother is now suffering in the same way with may of the same symptoms but with ever so slightly different symptoms aswell such as extreme memory impairment. He is being sent from doctor to doctor all with the mindset that this is a mental/mood issue. He is seeing counsellers with nothing worthy to discuss, CBT sessions with no changes to his mood, and medication (anti-depressants such as fluoxetine and sertraline) which have either made him worse or no changes at all, with withdrawral being uncomfortable and unneccessary. He also suffers with physical issues such as rhinitis, lack of sexual arousal, innability to sleep and more.
These symptoms combined all strike me as a hypothalamus/pituitary dysfuction but our doctors dont see a correlation.
It has been documented that clinical depression and anxiety are common with pituitary disorders. Some patients report memory and mental confusion, anger and/or rage and even changes in a patient's overall sense and awareness of themselves.
Why are doctors not trained in blood testing people who display symptoms of mood disorders for hypothalamus dysfuction before having them carted off on waiting lists for mental health treatment? which takes years.
Is there any research done at all that can correlate brain tumors coming after and not before mental illness/mood disorder symptoms?
I can only hope that the research ive done will convince the doctor to blood test and perform an MRI for my husbands brother, but i doubt it. Fingers crossed. x
