Ailments are a common part of our overzealous and extraordinarily overworked lifestyle. Maintaining a balance between work pressure and prioritizing your health is a challenge but not impossible. To maintain such a balance, you need to equally focus on your physical, mental, and psychological aspects. Knowledge is, therefore, highly significant. Being aware of your organs, their functions, and the symptoms that would thus, come up if there is any issue is highly essential.
This article will explain the meaning, causes, symptoms, and possible treatments behind parathyroid diseases.
What is parathyroid?
The parathyroid is a rice grain-sized gland placed right behind the thyroid gland, located just at the bottom of your neck. Every human body has four of those at the neck’s base. The gland produces parathyroid hormones, which is necessary for maintaining a healthy balance of calcium in your body, i.e., in the bloodstream and in the tissues that depend on calcium.
What are the symptoms of the parathyroid disorder?
One should be aware of the symptoms that would indicate that you are suffering from a parathyroid disease.
Common Parathyroid disease symptoms include:
- Chronic fatigue
- Difficulty sleeping
- Body aches
- Bone pain
- Poor concentration
- Memory loss
- Depression
- Headaches
If not treated, the symptoms of the parathyroid disease can aggravate, leading to Kidney stones, worse could lead to kidney failure, Osteoporosis, Hypertension, etc.
What is the cause of parathyroid disease?
About one out of 100 and one in 50 over-50 women can be affected by one of the parathyroid diseases. There could be three possibilities of parathyroid diseases if the organ is affected. They are:
- Hyperparathyroidism: A benign tumor may grow on the parathyroid gland causing abnormal functioning. Two types of hyperparathyroidism exist. The first type involves oversecretion of parathyroid hormone by the gland owing to its abnormal enlargement. This results in excess calcium levels in the bloodstream thus, causing a lot many health issues.
- Hypoparathyroidism: When the hormone secretion is considerably lower than normal, calcium levels could be considerably reduced. This type of condition is referred to as hypoparathyroidism.
- Parathyroid cancer: The cancer is rare, caused by malignant cells formed in the parathyroid tissue.
Parathyroid disease diagnosis
Once you notice the symptoms, the diagnosis includes testing your blood calcium level. Any deviation from the normal levels includes a possibility of parathyroid disease. Once the diagnosis is made, doctors may take more tests to make sure and understand the possible causes. Some of the possible tests include ultrasound of your kidney, bone densitometry, and a 25-hydroxy-vitamin D blood test to examine the calcium levels in your blood and evaluate the levels of parathyroid hormones released.
How to treat parathyroid disease?
Standard Parathyroid disease treatment procedure includes monitoring, medication and dietary supplements, and possible surgery after diagnosis. Hyperparathyroidism can be effectively treated by surgery. This involves removing the enlarged, overactive parathyroid gland. The surgery is performed either in a minimally invasive manner or by a standard neck exploration.
Possible medications post-surgery include calcium supplements and vitamin D to recover the calcium level back to normal.
Mild parathyroid ailment would require constant monitoring. It involves-
- Blood tests to detect calcium levels in the bloodstream,
- Measuring bone density to detect any lack of calcium, and
- Testing kidney functionality from time to time.
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Conclusion
Health is too crucial to be taken lightly. If you feel any of the above symptoms or any uneasiness, it is always prudent to check up with your doctor. Take the necessary tests and acknowledge whatever ailments are bothering your normal functioning. After all, it is never too late to treat yourself right.
