Symptoms of pituitary gland disorder – Dr. Anantharaman Ramakrishnan

Pituitary gland can produce symptoms either hormone excess or decrement in the amount of hormones produced. It can also produce symptoms because of mechanical effects. If there is tumor in pituitary you can get headache and the tumor can also grow upwards ans suppress the opticazm where the optic nerves cross over. If there is a growth at this point then you can have bitemporal hemianopia so it becomes difficult to do tasks like driving and your visual feel may get contracted. So you will be able to see things in centre of you visual field not side, this is one important symptom of pituitary lesions. It can produce wide range of hormonal manifestations, very common pituitary disorders like prolactinoma. Among women it produces a symptom called emanoria that is either your cycles stop coming or become irregular and also they may be associated with headache and difficulty while conceiving which is a symptom that high prolactin can produce. Non functional pituitary tumors present with headache or detected incidentally on CT scan they do not produce much of symptoms. Postpartum pituitary necrosis which is a heavy bleeding during the time of delivery there is an injury to the pituitary gland, decreased hormone level is seen which causes lactational failure, irregular cycles or stopping of cycles. So these are the things we commonly see in adults. Congenital pituitary disorders are commonly present with poor growth, lack of sexual maturity. rarely we get cushing syndrome where there is excess cortisol production because of small tumor in pituitary and person becomes overweight, develops diabetes, excess facial hair growth. Acromegaly is also seen where there is an excess growth hormone hands and feet becomes large, jaw becomes more prominent and also again you get diabetes and high blood pressure. Hence these are the symptoms of pituitary gland disorder.