Cushing’s Disease is so rare and little known, I think it is a common experience for many to live with it and not know they have it. It can come on slow or fast. I think for those that is comes on fast, so that they have a rapid weight gain or some other sudden health issue, they tend to start seeking an answer faster than someone like me.

CD had a slow start with me. Looking back, I’m pretty sure I did not have it in 2000, but that I definitely had it in the spring of 2002. My onset was somewhere in that timeframe. It was subtle, so I didn’t note any alarming change that caused me to note the day or go to a doctor seeking answers.

For a period of over a year around this time, I had increased nausea, but it wasn’t severe enough for me to note exactly when or mention it to a doctor. In the spring of 2002 I had what seemed like a never ending sinus infection. It is not unusual for me to have a sinus infection in the spring due to pollen allergies, but one round of antibiotics had always cleared it up. This time I went through rounds of increasing strength antibiotics and nothing seemed to touch it.

Looking back into that doctor record, my blood pressure was about 30 points higher than it had been. I was 31 years old. It wasn’t high enough to merit treatment and was probably attributed to “white coat syndrome” so two clues passed without notice.

A year later I went back to my internist feeling tired. He thought my Zyrtec had backfired on me, which it can do, and advised me to drop it and see if that helped.

A year later, in 2004, I went back to my internist still feeling tired. He sent me to a pulmonary specialist, suspecting sleep apnea. I underwent a sleep study and was diagnosed with sleep apnea and prescribed a CPAP for use while sleeping. I was 33 years old. Another missed clue.

I went on and on like this. Like the poor frog who is boiled in the pot because he doesn’t notice the slowly increasing temperature of the water, my symptoms increased so slowly, and my life was so busy, I didn’t notice or at least think any of my issues were of medical merit.

I slowly gained weight with more of the mass in my middle. The back of my neck turned dark. I scrubbed and scrubbed it and resorted to wearing scarves all the time. My elbows and knees turned dark. I either wore very long skirts or pants and always wore at least 3/4 length sleeves, even in the hot summer.

I started feeling more stressed and less able to deal with stress. I blamed this on things going on in my life and at work. In June 2007 I had a breakout of shingles on my left temple. This served as a stress wake up call to me, and I requested a part time working schedule.