Hello Everyone!

Anyone familiar with hyper or hypo parathyroid disease? Any information or personal experience would be welcome... thanks!

Bryanna

--it's hyper, as small benign adenomas of the parathyroids, which cause these small glands whose only function is to keep the amount of calcium in serum within a fairly narrow range, are not uncommon.

Typically, in such cases (such as my mom's) a small tumor causes more parathyroid hormone to be produced than is needed, overriding the feedback mechanisms and causing the body to think there is insufficient calcium in the bloodstream. Such people usually have both high normal to high ranges of both serum calcium and parathyroid hormone, which rises gradually over time, and an investigation needs to be done for such a hormone producing tumor, as the body tends to leach calcium from the bones in response to this erroneous signal.

Fortunately, in most cases, removal of the tumor and the gland that it is in (there are four parathyroid glands embedded within the thyroid) generally brings about a good outcome and a reversal of the rising levels.

There are some good sources of info about this out there:

http://www.parathyroid.com/

http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/874690-overview

Hi glenntaj,

Thanks for your reply! Yeah, I've read quite a bit about hyper parathyroid and the benign adenomas that commonly attach themselves to one or more of the glands. I learned that the calcium levels don't necessarily have to be out of the acceptable range of normal to have this problem. I think it is possible that more people have this problem than are diagnosed!

There is a Dr Norman in Tampa Florida (actually he is the Dr on that parathyroid.com website that you listed in your post) whose team specializes in a surgical procedure called the MIRP. Did your mom have surgery? Was it by this Dr Norman by any chance?

Bryanna

--and yes, about 10 years ago now. Normal calcium metabolism since.

Since there may be a hereditary component to this, I watch my calcium levels very closely. Part of the problem is that doctors have to remember to do the "albumin adjustment" for people with high or low albumin levels (mine tend to be high) to get a true picture of calcium levels, as much calcium is bound to albumin and levels in people with high albumin are likely to read artificially high. (It's often better in such cases to have regular measures done of parathyroid hormone levels and of ionized calcium levels; the latter are not influenced by albumin concentration. Those tests are more expensive, however.)

Hi glenntaj,

Thanks for the information! I did not know that calcium binds to albumin. Good to know!! I am familiar with the importance of testing the PTH, ionized calcium and phosphorous especially if the serum calcium is even slightly higher than normal.

Did I understand you correctly in that your mum had surgery by Dr Norman in Florida? If so, he claims his MIRP procedure is less invasive than conventional parathyroid surgery .... but very thorough and relatively painless post-operatively. Do you remember if your mom had a positive experience there?

Thank you so much for taking the time to share the information. I so appreciate it

Bryanna

--that it was a fairly minimal incision and recovery. Incision was about an inch.

Dr. Norman helped to pioneer minimally invasive parathyroid surgery, but he's far from the only one doing it now. The techniques have really improved over the last decade or so, and it is done many places. (Columbia Presbyterian is one in my areas that I know does it.)