Thread: STIM Test
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Old 05-17-2018, 08:48 PM
Patriotic American Patriotic American is offline
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Join Date: May 2018
Posts: 18
5 yr Member
Patriotic American Patriotic American is offline
Junior Member
 
Join Date: May 2018
Posts: 18
5 yr Member
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Quote:
Originally Posted by todayistomorrow View Post
I wanted to let people know about a test that can be done for those still having symptoms 1 year post trauma. It took me 6 years of traveling to top neuros across the country and doing research every day to find out about this. An endocronologist can do what's called a STIM test where you sit an infusion lab for about 5 hours in fasted state. They gave you insulin to drop you blood sugar levels below 40 and see how your stress hormones respond. Due to the pulsating nature of hormones, this is the most accurate(98%) way to test for growth hormone deficiency and other vital hormones by doing blood samples every 30 minutes.

Once in hypoglycemic state, the body should produce >5 levels of growth hormone. Anything below is considered deficient. Mine produced 3.2. All of my other blood test were normal. I pursued hormone therapy 3 years ago and was told I'm fine and I crossed it off my list of therapies to try.

I'll use injectable growth hormone for the rest of my life now. The research I had said 27% of patients with symptoms 1 year after trauma have some sort of pituitary dysfunction. I think it's worth consulting with a Endocronologist if this a test you should consider. It's expensive at $2,500(insurance may or may not cover it) and is admittedly not comfortable and carries some risk for when the drop your blood sugars.

This may not fix me completely, but I do think it's part of the puzzle. Just something I want people to be aware of and do your own research as I wish this information was available to me 5 years ago.
My levels started at 0.03 with first blood draw, and it went up only to around 0.92, that's it. Growth hormone injections have helped heal my brain.

By the way, were you ever having intense fatigue, muscle atrophy, bone atrophy, or pits on your scalp? I had all of these because of the low growth hormone levels.
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