Acromegaly is a hormonal disorder that usually occurs in middle aged men and women. There is about 5,000 cases per million people in the world. This is actually higher than I would have expected. The symptoms develope over time and usually affect extremities. Patients with acromegaly often suffer from headaches, excessive sweating, joint disorders, soft tissue swelling and a progressive coarsening of facial features and enlargement of the hands, feet and jaw. People that havent been treated face a mortality rate two to four times higher than average people.The word Acromegaly means great extremities. It affects the pituitary gland causing it to produce to much growth hormone. I would classify these people as giants of the world because of there great size. I know as a child that one of my favorite actors Richard Kiel reminds me of this condition. He lived a long life with this disease. He played the famous villian named "Jaws" in the James Bond series and some might know him as the crazy boss of Happy Gilmore in the movie Happy Gilmore. Information gathered from emedicine.com.
0 comments:
Post a Comment