The following symptoms and complaints may indicate Cushing’s disease (hypercortisolism):
Leading symptoms
- Full moon face (moon face; facies lunata), bull neck or buffalo neck (buffalo neck), truncal obesity.
- Adynamia, easy exhaustibility, fatigue.
Associated symptoms
- Arterial hypertension (high blood pressure)
- Atrophy of the genitals
- Depression
- Increased body weight
- Erythrocytosis – too many red blood cells (erythrocytes) in the blood.
- Feminization in men
- Fertility problems*
- Glucose intolerance to diabetes mellitus (diabetes).
- Glucosuria – excretion of sugar with urine.
- Skin
- Acne*
- Fingernails: thin and brittle
- Frontal alopecia (hair loss)
- Furunculosis – occurrence of multiple boils (purulent hair follicle inflammation).
- Vascular wall weakness (→ ecchymosis/purpura (general skin bleeding), hematoma/bruising), plethora.
- Skin atrophy
- Skin ulcers (skin ulcers)
- Hirsutism* – male type of hair in women.
- Hyperpigmentation of the skin (especially nipples, nail bed, fresh scars) and mucous membranes [only with increased ACTH secretion].
- Hypertrichosis – increased body and facial hair (without a male distribution pattern).
- Edema – water retention in the tissues.
- Red color of the face (facial plethora)
- Seborrheic skin* (oily skin).
- Striae rubrae (red stripes on the skin; v. a. abdominal) or dark red striae distensae (stretch marks).
- Virilism* – masculinization of women.
- Increase in subcutaneous fat centripetal, moon face, buffalo neck.
- Hyperandrogenemia/overproduction of male sex hormones [only with increased ACTH secretion].
- Hypercholesterolemia – lipid metabolism disorder in which there is too much cholesterol in the blood.
- Hypogonadism (hypofunction of the gonads).
- Hyperglycemia (hyperglycemia)
- Susceptibility to infection
- Insulin resistance – decreased effectiveness of endogenous insulin at target organs skeletal muscle, adipose tissue and liver.
- Bone pain due to osteoporosis
- Leukocytosis – too many white blood cells (leukocytes) in the blood.
- Loss of libido and potency (men).
- Muscle pain in proximal myopathy (muscle disease).
- Muscle weakness and atrophy / muscle atrophy.
- Osteoporosis (fatigue and compression fractures/bone fractures, if applicable).
- Polydipsia – excessive thirst with corresponding increased fluid intake.
- Polyuria – increased urine output.
- Mental disorders/personality changes (e.g., aggressiveness, depression, excitability, psychosis (reversible)).
- Truncal obesity – tendency to fat storage on the trunk (abdomen).
- Thrombocytosis – too many platelets (thrombocytes) in the blood.
- Growth arrest in children
- Centrally emphasized obesity
- Cycle disorders* to amenorrhea (absence of menstruation for more than three months).
* In the woman
