How did they find out you had it?

Sometimes there is something about you that make your parents or the doctors think you just might have a problem with your hypothalamus or pituitary gland. This could happen at any age and depends what the problem is and when it started.

This could be a range of things including not being so well as a baby, on the short side as a child or problems starting or finishing puberty.  Sometimes it is because you have a problem with your eyes (the hypothalamus and pituitary gland sit just behind your eyes) or it could be because you were feeling sick, having lots of headaches and being a little unsteady.

If you have had a tumour, surgery or radiation affecting the hypothalamus or pituitary gland doctors will be on the look out for problems with the hormones made by the hypothalamus and pituitary gland.

They check whether you have a problem by measuring hormones in the blood normally produced by the pituitary gland and by doing a scan (like a photo) of the area.

Questions you could ask your doctor or nurse

• When did they find out that I had a problem?
• What was it particularly that made the doctors check whether I had a problem?
• Can I have a look at my scan?