How do you diagnose growth hormone deficiency in adolescence?

Tricky: Most kids, particularly boys, who present with poor growth during adolescence often turn out to have delayed puberty and not gh deficiency. A pediatric endocrinologist is trained to distinguish between the two problems. Please discuss with your doctor.

Ghd: Growth hormone deficiency can be screened for on a routine lab test called igf-1. The main sign is lack of normal growth rate over months to years. Because it is a cyclical hormone which usually peaks in the middle of the night, very often endocrinologists perform "stimulated testing" to diagnose it definitively. This may require an i've for several hours while stimulant medications are infused.