Idiopathic Short Stature - IGF-1 vs. HGH?

[Gigantic]

That’s strange , I know few people growing up with celiac non had any growth issues. The sister in laws celiac as well , your son must be reacting to it quite differently.

It's different for everyone, but google "celiac height" / "growth" and you'll see.

 

[mdt]

FDA allows the use of HGH to treat idiopathic Short Stature. Many children begin treatment at the age of 3.
The usual treatment dose is 0.1~0.2 iu /kg /day.
If you have medicine, it should be used by children.

 

[Gigantic]

FDA allows the use of HGH to treat idiopathic Short Stature. Many children begin treatment at the age of 3.
The usual treatment dose is 0.1~0.2 iu /kg /day.
If you have medicine, it should be used by children.

Not approved to treat celiac-induced short stature though.

 

[Trest2021]

Off-topic but as a short Asian dude this made me feel kinda bad LOL

Regardless I hope your son gets your genetics and grows tall there is certainly a difference in how short vs tall men get treated.

On the side note my father is 6’2” (well above Asian American male average) but I ended up growing to be 5’7”. I can definitely tell you growing up and everyone expecting you to get a growth spurt and not getting it is kinda disappointing and I hope your son doesn’t gotta go through that.

 

[narta]

My father is 5'4". Mother 5'3". I am my parents child confirmed by DNA.

I was the shortest and smallest guy till I hit 15. Ended up 6'4" at 20 and 240 pounds just looking at weights.

Individual biology is a wonderful and bizarre thing.

 

[Para_33]

I would honestly appreciate this, especially if they can do telemedicine.

The doctors here in this state refuse to provide referrals to the right folks for this, and they just come back with “everything is fine,” WITHOUT showing me the test results.

I was only able to get his IGF-1 levels out of them, and only because I asked a doctor to do it. It’s starting to piss me off, especially given how society treats men of short stature and because he’s projected to be around 4’11” to 5’. Even his sibling 3 years younger is the same height. Obviously something is wrong and the docs are dumbasses.

I’d snap that doctor in half. Sorry man. Try marekhealth if they can help minors.

 

[Gigantic]

The good news is, about 5 months after posting this thread, we finally found a doctor who actually gave a shit and prescribed him HGH. It's expensive, but he's gained over 5 inches in a year since I posted this.

He's still a lot shorter than his peers despite the growth gains, but we're hoping after 3-4 years on this he'll be fully caught up. He seems to have a weird genetic mutation that causes his growth hormone to heavily dimerize, so he cannot grow very well without exogenous HGH.

 

[AlexDavis43]

He seems to have a weird genetic mutation that causes his growth hormone to heavily dimerize, so he cannot grow very well without exogenous HGH.

That's weird. His body dimerizes endogenous GH but not exogenous GH?

Is this a guess or is there some other testing that confirmed it?

Out of medical curiosity: why not something like Increlex (IGF-1)? Talking about the possibility of clinical efficacy, not availability or you sourcing UGL gear for your kiddo.

 

[Gigantic]

That's weird. His body dimerizes endogenous GH but not exogenous GH?

Is this a guess or is there some other testing that confirmed it?

Out of medical curiosity: why not something like Increlex (IGF-1)? Talking about the possibility of clinical efficacy, not availability or you sourcing UGL gear for your kiddo.

In this kind of genetic condition, the body produces corrupted HGH that’s dimerized. Which means the issue isn’t in the conversion of HGH -> Liver -> IGF-1, the issue is that the HGH produced by the body is weird.

One such mutation causes replacement of cysteine at position 53 of the 191-amino-acid sequence of 22 kDa human GH (hGH) with serine which inevitably results in reduced bioavailability.

So normal HGH works really well as treatment for this condition because the HGH itself hasn’t been “corrupted.”

Regarding the medical curiosity, no idea. I am not a doctor and simply follow an endocrinologist’s recommendations. No need to source UGL gear for the kid since I have good insurance that pays, but for a while I was paying cash (~13k/month). I source UGL gear for myself.

 

[Pinnacle Elements]

6 is too young dude lol. Let him go through puberty. If at 16-17 he isn’t taller than 5’3, I say start then.

Don’t jump the gun.

 

[Gigantic]

6 is too young dude lol. Let him go through puberty. If at 16-17 he isn’t taller than 5’3, I say start then.

Don’t jump the gun.

This is one of the most uneducated and uninformed opinions I've ever heard on the forum to date.

1. Growth plates fuse by 16-17, no further growth is possible.

2. Waiting to see if they're not > 5'3" by 16-17 means TOO LATE.

 

[malfeasance]

I grew 13 inches after age 16.

Maybe it is because I was ignorant and didn't know that I was supposed to stop growing?

 

[Gigantic]

I grew 13 inches after age 16.

Maybe it is because I was ignorant and didn't know that I was supposed to stop growing?

Most people don’t. And that usually indicates constitutional delay of puberty, which has a whole bunch of other ramifications, including the possibility of no growth.

 

[malfeasance]

I was late puberty, too.