Precocious Puberty Support Group
Early pubic hair, breast, or genital development may result from normal but early maturation or from several abnormal conditions. Early puberty which is normal in every way except age is termed idiopathic central precocious puberty. It may be partial or transient. If your child is going through early puberty, share your experiences here and get support.
I would appreciate hearing form any PP suvivors who weren't treated. Or parents of PP children that weren't treated. Do you wish you would have done things differently?
My 9 year old daughter has been diagnosed with early puberty. We think it started when she was about 7.5 years old. Things have progressed very quickly. She is now a Tanner Stage 4 and we are expecting her to stared her period any time. We saw an endo about 6 months ago. Had the whole workup. Blood tests came back borderline, MRI and pelvic scan were fine. Bone age was only 6 months advanced.
Here is where I break apart from the crowd. Doc recommended Lupron or Supprelin. We are electing to not treat her. Part of his is due to her wishes, part due to the lack of research on what lupron does to people LATER in life. I have read every study I can get my hands on (my career is in research) about Lupron. All say it is safe and effective while it is being used. I can't find any that have followed children into adulthood to see if the Lupron caused any bad side effects (i.e. infertility, bone degeneration, etc.). Another problem is the side effects....mood swings, weight gain, acne, etc. We don't have any of that right now.
After several very blunt talks with my daughter, we ultimately left the decision up to her. You would have to know my child to understand why we did this. She is so mentally mature for her age. Not as in "sexy" mature, but as in "I know what I want out of my life" type of mature. I debated on letting her make this decision and if I thought it was going to cause a detriment to her physical health, I would intervene. However, her words were,
"Mom, please just put yourself in my shoes and think about what you would do. Would you go ahead and get shots or an implant that will make your quality of life possibly worse, and possibly cause problems later in your life, or would you just say, 'well, it is going to happen in a couple of years anway so I am fine with going through with it now,' I want to just move ahead naturally. I don't care if I have bigger breasts, or have to wear a bra, or am taller than everyone else. I don't care. Please stop making such a big deal out of this. The doctor told me that I will be above 5 feets, so everythign else will be fine."
The part about "put yourself in my shoes" really did the trick. I thought back to when I was in fourth grade. Had I been faced with this, I would have done the exact same thing as her. I was very mentally mature at that age, too.
I have looked at this from every different way I can, and I have researched until my eyes hurt. Here are my end thoughts...
The possible bad things that can happen if we don't treat her:
1. Decreased height (Doc says she will be at least 5'1")
2. Psychological problems due to too much pressure at an early age. (Yes, this is definitely a possiblity, so is the possiblity of psychological problems from the mood swings from the Lupron, or the bad self esteem from the possibl weight gain, or from having to get a shot every month, or from not just embracing this change and acting like it is part of life, labeling her that somehting is "wrong" with her that needs to be fixed)
3. POSSIBLE increased chance of breast cancer later in life due to the increase of her exposure to estrogen (yes, this sucks, but there are SO SO many things that cause an increase in your chance of breast cancer (i.e. if you are overweight, drink, have PCOS, have irregular periods, have a family history, ect. etc). and it hasn't been proven that people treated with Lupron have a decreased risk.
I feel like we would rather fight the effects of early puberty rather than the possible WORSE effects of something we are purposely injecting in her.
My 9 year old daughter has been diagnosed with early puberty. We think it started when she was about 7.5 years old. Things have progressed very quickly. She is now a Tanner Stage 4 and we are expecting her to stared her period any time. We saw an endo about 6 months ago. Had the whole workup. Blood tests came back borderline, MRI and pelvic scan were fine. Bone age was only 6 months advanced.
Here is where I break apart from the crowd. Doc recommended Lupron or Supprelin. We are electing to not treat her. Part of his is due to her wishes, part due to the lack of research on what lupron does to people LATER in life. I have read every study I can get my hands on (my career is in research) about Lupron. All say it is safe and effective while it is being used. I can't find any that have followed children into adulthood to see if the Lupron caused any bad side effects (i.e. infertility, bone degeneration, etc.). Another problem is the side effects....mood swings, weight gain, acne, etc. We don't have any of that right now.
After several very blunt talks with my daughter, we ultimately left the decision up to her. You would have to know my child to understand why we did this. She is so mentally mature for her age. Not as in "sexy" mature, but as in "I know what I want out of my life" type of mature. I debated on letting her make this decision and if I thought it was going to cause a detriment to her physical health, I would intervene. However, her words were,
"Mom, please just put yourself in my shoes and think about what you would do. Would you go ahead and get shots or an implant that will make your quality of life possibly worse, and possibly cause problems later in your life, or would you just say, 'well, it is going to happen in a couple of years anway so I am fine with going through with it now,' I want to just move ahead naturally. I don't care if I have bigger breasts, or have to wear a bra, or am taller than everyone else. I don't care. Please stop making such a big deal out of this. The doctor told me that I will be above 5 feets, so everythign else will be fine."
The part about "put yourself in my shoes" really did the trick. I thought back to when I was in fourth grade. Had I been faced with this, I would have done the exact same thing as her. I was very mentally mature at that age, too.
I have looked at this from every different way I can, and I have researched until my eyes hurt. Here are my end thoughts...
The possible bad things that can happen if we don't treat her:
1. Decreased height (Doc says she will be at least 5'1")
2. Psychological problems due to too much pressure at an early age. (Yes, this is definitely a possiblity, so is the possiblity of psychological problems from the mood swings from the Lupron, or the bad self esteem from the possibl weight gain, or from having to get a shot every month, or from not just embracing this change and acting like it is part of life, labeling her that somehting is "wrong" with her that needs to be fixed)
3. POSSIBLE increased chance of breast cancer later in life due to the increase of her exposure to estrogen (yes, this sucks, but there are SO SO many things that cause an increase in your chance of breast cancer (i.e. if you are overweight, drink, have PCOS, have irregular periods, have a family history, ect. etc). and it hasn't been proven that people treated with Lupron have a decreased risk.
I feel like we would rather fight the effects of early puberty rather than the possible WORSE effects of something we are purposely injecting in her.
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