Those of you who follow my ongoing issues (I flatter myself, don't I) besides neuropathy may recall the thyroid nodule scare of 2011 and the hemoglobin A1c 5.7 level (first time I was ever in the "impaired tolerance" range) annoyance of May 2012.

Well, just got the most recent results back, and after losing 10 pounds, revamping my diet, putting on lots of walking miles, etc., hemoglobin A1c is back down to 5.5. Other labs are pretty good--EXCEPT calcium. Given that I've always had high normal levels there, we decided to test for ionized calcium (a more accurate measure of active, non-albumin bound calcium) and parathyroid hormone levels. The ionized calcium levels are a bit high--1.37 on the 1.05-1.34 scale--and my parathyroid hormone is also somewhat high at 83 (with upper limit 65--and for most people it shouldn't be higher than 35-40 with normal/high calcium levels).

This means I very probably have a growing parathyroid adenoma. Given that my mother had one removed 12 years ago, I wouldn't be surprised. Not an emergency situation, as only about .015% of these are malignant, and even those are indolent, but rising calcium levels have all sorts of nasty results down the line (bone loss being only the most obvious), so we'll need to do something about this--likely finding the offending parathyroid gland(s) and removing it (them).

I'm going for semi-annual thyroid ultrasound tomorrow, and I'm going to try to get them to change the filters to look for parathyroid enlargements, though ultrasound is often not sensitive enough to find those, and I may have to have a 4D CT or radioactive sestimibi scan to find those, especially if this is in the early stages. Not an emergency, but could be explanatory of my musculoskeletal aches and pains over the last year (and even of the reflux I had about 10 months ago). I've already contacted my people at Cornell Weill about a surgical consult with their endocrine surgery department (they know me well in that medical system). I will report, of course