[RGMCjim]

Hi,
I got busy and haven't had a chance to keep up with my emails.
Actually, I've had nasty health problems associated with CAH all my life but because I wasn't checked for it (could they do that in 1957?) it was never attributed to the CAH. I had seizures as a baby which my doctor now says could have been the result of minor adrenal events. I've had anxiety, depressed immune system, hypoglycemia that eventually turned into diabetes, episodes of adrenal exhaustion, and extremely high levels of salt in my urine and sweat (to the point where I have to drink gatoraide when I exercise to keep from getting sick from salt loss) all my life due to what my doctors called "hyper-adrenalism". It's just that no one knew that there might be a unifying cause for all this stuff and that it might be the same thing that made my genitals ambiguous until last year.

My current doctor told me I've got "classic CAH". Both my Mom and Dad have some of the same things I've got, and so do other relatives. I just read that there is a high incidence of polycystic ovarian syndrome in people with CAH and in CAH carriers. My mother, and 3 of my nieces have it. My Dad has all kinds of adrenal gland related problems and both my parents and one of my brothers have anxiety. My Dad is getting tested for CAH. My mother is estranged so I'll never know about her, but I've no doubt she either has a mild case of it or is a carrier because she's got a lot of symptoms that both carriers and the affected have according to my Dr. and what I've been reading.

I didn't have female puberty. At the time they started me on testosterone at 15 or 16 (don't remember) they said my natural levels were in between normal for male and female. They used that to determine how much I should take every month to put me in the normal male range. They didn't test my estrogen levels. When I had my work up for intersex my testosterone levels were perfect for male, (so my dosing was right) and my estrogen levels were low normal for female. They told me that my high estrogen levels were protecting my heart but weren't high enough to feminize me so I had the best of both worlds. Testosterone is necessary for erections in males AND females. I've never had trouble with erections, or orgasms and I have a high libido. But despite having a prostate my ejaculate was always small and as I've gotten older has disappeared altogether.

I didn''t know I had a vagina until 5 years ago. I had had changes in my genitals in part due to a horrible outbreak of herpes. Where I'd been fused became "unfused" (I didn't understand that at the time, I just knew something was wrong), and I was having urinary pain and felt like I was tearing between my legs when I sat. I asked for medical help and that's how I got the workup for intersex. They found a very thick, imperforate hymen which they opened and had me work on with dildos of increasing size. Then they educated me in the care and feeding of vaginas because I knew next to nothing, and mine wasn't like the few I'd known. What they told me was that because I had never had female puberty my vagina was immature and would stay that way. It doesn't lubricate, it doesn't elongate when I'm aroused, the mucosa is thin and is easily injured and I don't have the kind of protective bacteria or "self-flushing" system women have. I don't have any more awareness of it being there now than I ever did. To use it for sex I have to use lube and often have to add more. It is incredibly sensative to penetration by anything and has added totally new dimension to orgasms. My sex therapist says that is common for only about 25% of females and is probably because my "g-spot" is also a "p-spot". I won big time. Kind of makes up for not having had access to it until I was 44.

Anyway, that's probably WAY more than you wanted to know but I'm trying to give an idea of what my body has and does.

Jim