Is anyone looking?

About a year ago, a woman walked into my office, sat down, and started to cry as she told me her story of having 8 previous surgeries on her arm. She was looking at possibly losing the arm completely if the next (9th) surgery did not work.

Other than frequent fractures, obesity, and osteoporosis at the early age of 42, she was healthy.

I told her that I had seen previous cases before and thought I could help her. I wanted to do a blood test that her family practitioner and previous bone surgeons had failed to do.

What was the test?

IGF- (Insulin-Like Growth Factor 1) the way to test for growth hormone deficiency.

Obesity, fatigue, decreased bonen mass--ALL SYMPTOMS OF GROWTH HORMONE DEFICIENCY and she had them all. Is anyone listening? It seems that most bone surgeons and endocrinologists are not.

Not a few but HUNDREDS of articles dating back to 1969 show that growth hormone increases bone mass. And the best research shows it decreases risk of cancer and lowers weight and your risk of heart disease.

Here's the rest of the story of this woman's arm (a year later) in her words (see below for the science behind the miracle). By the way, this amazing woman is full-time mother to two grandchildren who will also benefit from this arm with hugs and more:

But do endocrinologist in the US check growth hormone or do orthopedic surgeons check growth hormone levels when a bone does not heal?!

What do you think?

Imagine this--this may really be difficult--but what if we actually checked growth hormone levels BEFORE doing the first surgery?

I'm afraid we've let the politics of atheletic abuse and over zealous cops scare most physicians away from even saying the letters hGH in their office. I had many physicians and physician's wives in my practice who are taking growth hormone prescribed by me but who were afraid to prescribe it.

And rightly so. Many of you know that the Alabama Board of Medicine limited my practice (and fined me $31,000) and gave me three weeks to dump 1,000 plus patients on the streets (including the woman in this video) largely because of my prescribing of growth hormone.

Growth hormone (hGH) is the only drug in the US that is punishable by a prison sentence to the physician if prescribed without proving the diagnosis (can't be given "off label" like most other drugs).

The big trick is that no one can agree on how to prove the diagnosis. If you read the Blue Cross Blue Shield policies, it seems plain (fail a stim test with a level less than 5).

But that number 5 is not well documented and even the idea of a stim test at all is debated (because it assumes a normally operating hypothalamus). The country of Australia and most of Europe has no such requirement.

To make it even more confusing, there's on-going debate about what should be used to stimulate the pituitary gland when you do a Stim test. When Blue Cross of Alabama first changed their policy and started requiring a stim test at all, it was in September of 2008 after auditing my practice because I was costing them too much money (they were buying gorowth hormone for 300 plus patients all of whom had failed stim testing at a time when Blue Cross only required an IGF-1 less than 160).

So, Blue Cross of Alabama changed the policy and required an insulin stim test and another pituitary hormone abnormality (the second part put my patients out in the wind--so I turned in my PMD status). Since then, they've come off the policy of requiring a second pituitary hormone abnormality.

The insulin stim test they initially required can be life threatening and of course discourged people from doing the test (you fast over night and then take insulin iv to drop your blood sugar more. I'm allowed to give you glucose iv to keep you from having a seizure--kind of them huh?)

Well, they came off of that policy too and now will allow other agents (arginine or growth hormone releasing hormone) and do not require a second pituitary hormone abnormality---but the problem is that the whole concept is flawed in that stim tests in general have been proven to be inconsistent and unreliable.

Are you starting to get the idea that the tail is wagging the dog and there is little brain inside the tail?

To make it even crazier, the insurance carriers don't agree with each other and the physicians do not agree with the insurance carriers and the FDA and most state boards of medicine will not allow physicians and patients to make their own decisions about this drug (even though the institutions who control the drug cannot reach agreement).

Is it surprising that a gastric-bypass surgeon spear headed my disciplinary actions for use of growth hormone? Take a look at this woman before you anwer that question (a former FDA agent who lost 77 pounds in 5 months after I replaced her growth hormone).

Hopefully the future will see a more rational approach to hGH. The use of hGH will become common and accepted in the US when it becomes generic and cheap (when the tail decides it's willing to pay). It could be had now for $20 a bottle instead of $300 but the FDA prevents the importation of GH until the patent laws allow a generic form (I have no idea when that changes---ask me something medical, I do better than I do with law questions).

But, here's the take home message: if you or someone you love has poorly healing bones or thin bones at an early age, find a doctor who will do an the IGF-1 and who understands growth hormone. The American Board of Endocrinology is about 5 years behind the research so you'll probably need to find a family practitioner or internist to do this for you (unles you live in Itally, Japan, Autralia, or Switzerland where policies are ahead of the US.

Your surgeon and your endocrinologists are not stupid or evil. They are billiant but caught in the herd and brain washed by the tail (insurance policies) and big boozumed drug reps pushing fosumax or boneUpax or whatever the lastest poison is that's not made by your body (like growth hormone) but able to be sold at rite-aid for less than growth hormone.

So be patient, in 5 to 10 years, the battle will be won, in the mean time...

Please click below and forward this note to family practitioners, and nurses, and surgeons that you may know (and be sure to subscribe to my health lessons by clicking the button at the top of the page to stay up-to-date with these topics).

Peace & Health,

Charles Runels, MD

(The Temple Repairman)