What does an endocrinologist do?
An endocrinologist is a doctor who specialises in diseases of the endocrine glands, parts of the body which are responsible for producing hormones. Your body has several different endocrine glands, but the important ones as far as Kallmann's syndrome is concerned are shown in Figure 1.Some of your endocrine glands work on their own, but most work together as members of a close-knit "endocrine team". Endocrine teams control many different functions in the body, including the regulation of your appetite, body temperature and blood pressure. Normally, one of these teams encourages the development of the body during puberty and maintains the secondary sexual characteristics (these are described later in the answer to Question 6) once puberty has been completed. Normally, girls reach puberty by the time they are 15 years old, a year or two earlier than boys
Sometimes, however, this regulation mechanism breaks down, as has happened in your case. The main cause in this case is a malfunctioning hypothalamus (item 1), a small but vital endocrine gland in your brain.
Located near to the hypothalamus is its "team-mate", the pituitary gland (item 2), but the usually good working relationship between these two endocrine glands does not exist. If your hypothalamus and pituitary gland were working together normally, another group of endocrine glands would have joined the team. These are your sex endocrine glands or gonads. The male gonads are the testes (items 3) and in the female, the ovaries (items 4). You have two other small endocrine glands which, although they are not really members of the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal team, do have some influence over sexual development. These are the adrenal glands (items 5), located just above your kidneys.
In the answers to Questions 5, 6 & 7, you will learn how these endocrine glands should work together normally and why, in your case, a malfunctioning hypothalamus has led to absent puberty, or would have done so if you had not sought treatment.
