Addison's Disease Essays

Cushing’s syndrome is a rare endocrine disorder that occurs when your body is exposed to an overabundance of the hormone cortisol.3 Cortisol is known as the stress hormone. The interruption of cortisol secretion can cause weight gain and can ultimately determine where you put the weight on.8 There are many underlying causes such as Pituitary Adenomas, Ectopic ACTH Syndrome, Adrenal Tumors, and Familial Cushing’s Syndrome.2 The majority of these people affected by this hormonal disorder experience weak muscles, increase fat, high blood pressure, etc.1 Although thousands are affected in various ways, there are currently several channels of treatment administered by medical professionals. Through the use of improving technology, medical professionals are better understanding the disorder, allowing them to develop better treatment practices.

The introduction to Addison’s disease. It is basically when your body doesn't produce enough of the hormone cortisol, which pretty much means that you don’t have adrenaline, because cortisol is what produces adrenaline. I believe that Addison’s disease is a terrible disease. Your body does not get the adrenaline rush during sports, or whenever your body gets one, at the time when you need one. Addison’s disease is a very rare disease. Cortisol comes from your adrenal glands. The adrenal glands are located on top of your kidneys.(One gland on each kidney) So, if you are ready to learn about how Addison’s disease affects people’s everyday life?

In an acute stressor, the immune system is heightened. But is suppressed in a chronic stressor. In this situation the cortisol levels rise, and weaken the immune system. This weaken system can make the human body more susceptible to serious disease, infections

One of these symptoms is jaundice, which is characterized by yellowish skin and eyes because of an inability of the liver to remove bilirubin from the blood. Patient with cirrhosis also suffering from itching, due to deposited bile's products in the skin. This patient also suffers from accumulation of fluid in legs that is called edema. As a result of the blockage of blood flow via the liver, fluid accumulation in abdomen which is worsen by the decrease in protein production. Other symptoms include fatigue, weakness, loss of appetite, weight loss and nausea. As the disease progress, complications may develop ,such as varices that happens with cirrhosis patient when the blood flow through the liver slows, so the blood from intestine go back to the vessels of the stomach and esophagus, these vessels are not meant to carry this much of blood so they dilate (varices), with increasing

The biological purpose of the stress response is to help the body to survive either some sort of attack or a serious illness like a stroke or heart attack. During the stress response glucocorticoids divert the bodies energy to the areas necessary for survival like the muscles and the brain and it shuts down the areas that are not necessary for survival like the digestive and immune systems (Sopolsky, 2009). Chronic Stress in this context, is to experience this physical effect on regular or long term basis. This has become a public health issue for humans because we experience this chronic biological response on a too frequent a basis for psychological reasons (Stress, 2008).

Usually patients accidentally come across diagnostics of the disease. For example, a change in female hormone levels can be a good indicator for whether a person has an adrenal tumor. One would investigate whether an incidentaloma was influencing adrenal cortical hormone levels by performing numerous tests and diagnostics. The first step is the collection of urine or blood samples to be tested for adrenal gland hormone levels. If a suspicious

Stress is natural and not necessarily a negative issue. Stress is a signal of change, whenever there is some significant change in one's life; it results to some level of stress in the body system. According to Smith (2008), Stress is a natural biological response to threat or luck of control in ones life. When the human brain perceives a threat, it sends messages to the adrenal glands, which in turn releases hormones that cause the body to be alert. One of these hormones is cortisol. Cortisol is a home that helps the body by reestablishing energy supplies, enhancing memory as well as the immune system. This hormonal activity in the body halts digestion and raises blood sugar level,

Diagnosing the disease can be relatively simple, but this depends on accurate patient history and ones ability to recognize varied clinical signs and then perform diagnostic procedures. These diagnostic procedures may include antigen testing, x-rays, ultrasonography, angiography, a complete blood count, the Knott’s or Filter test, and in the worst case necropsy.

Addison 's disease affects about 1 in 100,000 people. Most diagnosed cases are caused because the adrenal cortex has been damaged over time by a person 's own immune system. Autoimmune disorders happen when the immune system produces antibodies in order to attack the

Stress is known to negatively impact health. Psychological responses, such as mood, emotion and coping, influence the way we perceive stress and the impact it has on the physiological response (Chida & Hamer, 2008). Past studies have used the hormone cortisol to test the stress response(Dickerson &

Consequently, Addison’s disease is said to affect approximately 1 in every 10,000 people and if left untreated, may be fatal (2).

“In 1855, Thomas Addison first described adrenal insufficiency, which was subsequently named after him. The basis of Addison disease has dramatically changed since its initial description. Originally, the disease usually resulted from

Most signs and symptoms are related directly to the excessive cortisol in the body. The most common are weight gain, central obesity with thin extremities, fat pads on the upper back, and a round ‘moon faced’ appearance. (Williams, L., & Hopper. P., 2015)

recessive disorder of the exocrine glands. About one in every 2500 Caucasians is affected, and

Chronic stress can also interfere with the body’s immune system directly through hormonal changes. Glucocorticoids-a hormone