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Originally Posted by Juswave Thank You for your response. What type of treatment did they do for your son? At this time the testing has been done by the pediatrician. I have made an appointment for a month from now to have the test run again to see if the test comes back at a higher abnormality. At this time her other breast is developing. I was an early developer but not that young. I do however think she is more mature than other children her age. She was born 3 weeks early and was 8.9 lb. her baby teeth seemed to come in early and now she already has 8 permanent teeth so maybe it is just an early developing issue. I was just hoping someone could relate with me. Thank You. |
Hi There, My advice to you would be to demand a referral from your Pediatrician to take your daughter to see an Endocrinologist. Keep in mind, should your daughter have Precocious Puberty the longer it goes undiagnosed and untreated the more advanced and developed she will become and even with treatment you wont be able to turn back the clock, per se. What she develops before treatment, will not go away.
When you said that your daughter seems more mature and mentioned about the permanent teeth it didnt surprise me as that too will go hand in hand with the Precocious Puberty. Have you noticed if she has started to get hair anywhere?
I will tell you about my son also how and why he ended up with the Precocious Puberty.
My son suffered a lack of blood and oxygen to his brain either in utero at some point and time, or during birth or shortly after birth. He is considered the big ? baby. So due to the lack of blood and oxygen he suffered severe brain damage. From the time of birth the pediatrician repeatedly was telling me that due to the severe brain damage that he will always be very small for his age. (as i am sure you have seen several handicapped children and they are all most generally small for their age) Well, it didnt happen that way. He continued to grow rapidly and was always much bigger than a child his same age. His first year of life we spent mostly in the hospital fighting bouts of illness and even though he would be so sick and on full life support he still continued to gain weight and grow. He too got many of his permanent teeth very early. His 6 year molars were in when he was only 4 years old. He was also developing hair growth, which the doctors repeatedly blamed on his repeated need for Prednisone. (side effect of the medication)
I always had that gut feeling that there was more to it. When he was no longer on repeated doses of the Prednisone and he still kept developing i demanded for him to see the Endocrinologist and that is when he was diagnosed. You see, what happens with boys (same with girls) is that from the time they are born until about 2 months old the Pituitary gland produces testosterone. At about 2 months old the brain will tell the Pituitary Gland to stop producing and distributing the testosterone and to shut down. The Pituitary gland will then sit dormant until they reach the normal age that a child starts to go into puberty, then the brain tells the pituitary gland to start producing testosterone again and that is when a boy will start to go into puberty. In my sons case because the portion of the brain that should have told the pituitary gland to stop producing testosterone and to shut off was damaged and could not tell the pituitary gland to stop producing the testosterone. So basically up until i demanded testing he was producing the testosterone and slowly going into puberty basically from infancy. By the time i demanded the testing he about 3 or 4 years old and his testosterone level came back at the same level a mature adult males would be.
Precocious Puberty will also effect a childs bone age. When my son was 2 the doctors did testing to see what his bone age was because he was so big and at that time it came back as if he were a 6 year old.
At this time there is 2 treatments for the precocious puberty. (they may have come out with something else recently as medicine is ever so changing everyday) There is a medicine that is given once a month as an Intramuscular Injection (IM Shot) that you can even give at home yourself (i did) should you feel comfortable giving your child an injection yourself.
Also, there is a nasal spray that is called Synarel. I switched to the Synarel nasal spray just because of an undesired side effect the IM injection had on my son. The Synarel works very well. It is very expensive, the bottle is very tiny and lasts my son approx. 2 weeks and it is a $1000.00 a bottle!!!!!!
When these medications are started, yes they do lessen some of the already existing symptoms of the puberty but they dont and cant reverse what development in the body that has already ocurred. However these medications are very effective in stopping the production of the testosterone and estrogen to prevent anymore development. Then when the time comes that your child would normally start to go into puberty you simply stop the medication and let nature take it's course.
Of course there is a possibility that your daughter may not have the Precocious Puberty as there are other diagnosis's that could cause the development of breast buds, however seeing how you had stated that your daughter seems to be "advanced" i would definately have her tested immediately, what could it hurt? Ya know? That way should she have the Precocious Puberty you can get it under control now before it gets to far out of hand.
If you have anymore questions feel free to ask, i will help you anyway i can. I would do a search on the internet on Precocious Puberty and get as much info as you can and match up the symptoms it lists and see how many your daughter is already displaying.
Good Luck, ValleyGurl
