lnr | Entries tagged with hypercalcaemia

It mildly annoys me that because the parathyroid clinic takes place as part of the clinics for diabetes and weight management they always take your weight and BP when you arrive. I'm not sure the consultant was even interested in them, she didn't mention either and they're certainly not relevant to my condition, but they didn't let me relax for even a minute before taking the BP so it was a little high (147/79).

The consultant herself asked me if I was well (yes), confirmed when the surgery was (September 2009) and that it seemed to be a success (given I had no symptoms at diagnosis this is hard to quantify, but there's been no recurrence of the kidney stone I had last year). My calcium levels (taken last week) are completely normal. My bone density (scan done in May) is completely normal. So I'm officially discharged. They're not even going to worry about the fact I'm a bit young to have had the problem.

If I ever get another kidney stone I should get my calcium levels checked at that point, but otherwise it's not even worth bothering. I'm all better. Hurray!

Current Mood: cheerful

They've confirmed that the enlarged (and removed) parathyroid was indeed an adenoma: a benign tumour. Also taken a blood sample to check calcium and parathyroid hormone levels are back to normal. They'll write to me and my GP and let me know the results, if so we're all done and dusted. He didn't say what happens if they're still elevated! Also apparently my scar should be all but invisible within 12 months, which is excellent news. It's fairly unobtrusive anyway, all things considered. All good.

In other news I'm actively looking at wedding venues now: have three visits to colleges lined up, all inconveniently on different weekends, but Mum and Dad will be able to come along for one of them. V exciting, and scarily expensive looking!

Thanks all who sent good wishes. Surgery apparently went well on Thursday, and I was allowed home the same evening. Since then I've largely been curled up in my pyjamas under the duvet reading lots and letting Mike look after me. I've finally got up properly today :)

I'm still achy, I've got a big scab a couple of inches long along one side of my neck, but it's right along an existing crease, so once it's healed the scar should barely show. And I'm not in enough pain to be worth taking even paracetamol, which is brilliant.

I'm taking vitamin D and calcium supplements for a fortnight, until the other three glands supposedly recover from being rather suppressed and everything gets back to normal, and I go back to see the consultant in 4 weeks. I'll be seeing my GP on Monday though, to give him my discharge letter and check that I've not got too much calcium in my system now. There's a bit of me that's scared I'll be like my neighbour and find the operation hasn't worked and they need to operate again and look at the other glands. I hope not!

I don't think I'm up to sitting in front of a computer all day yet, it makes my neck ache, but I should be OK by the end of next week I guess, we'll just have to wait and see. Overall I'm a lot more recovered than I thought I'd be though.

Sprained/chipped ankle: sufficiently better that most of the time I don't even remember I did it any more. Even when doing things like attempting to scale a climbing wall. Success.

Hyperparathyroidism/hypercalcaemia: Have appointment to see surgeon on 28th, at which point they'll make an appointment to actually have the operation and take my overactive parathyroid out. Relatively minor day surgery, will need to take calcium/vitamin D supplements for a while afterwards until the other three glands reset to normal operation.

Kidney stone: This is almost certainly caused by the excess calcium in my urine because of the above. CT scan results are in and I have a 4mm stone in my left kidney. At this size it's 50/50 whether it's worth treating, but since I have symptoms (pain again this Tuesday, and I can still sort of feel it now) the GP has referred me to have it broken up using external ultrasound. No idea how long this referral will take. In the meantime I still have enough diclofenac left to deal with the pain.

Metabolic Syndrome: Having lost some weight I've discussed this with my GP. Since I have a strong family history of diabetes it's very likely that even if I lose more weight I'm still going to get diabetes later. He'd rather I continued to take the Metformin and statins, since apparently they can have a protective effect and will hopefully delay its onset. I'm not terribly happy with this, but will review in maybe 6-8 months time, at which point I'll ask them to re-do all the sugar/cholesterol level tests too. This does mean I still can't drink.

Weight loss: 13kg so far to 97kg, which is over 10% of my weight and more than 5 BMI points. I expect to reach 90kg (around BMI 31.5, and my next target) by mid-September. I need to reach 85kg to no longer be classed as obese. Still following Slimming World online, still trying not to go on about it.

I may in the past have expressed some impatience with the fact I've had so many appointments to diagnose and test a condition for which I had no apparent symptoms. This morning however I woke at 5am with a strong pain in my abdomen, mostly in the left lower back, which became stronger and weaker in waves, and kept me more or less awake and uncomfortable until 8am when I could phone the GPs, and get an appointment at 9am. Testing my urine showed signs of blood in it, and it seems that in fact all this extra calcium in my blood has caused the formation of a kidney stone. Ow.

I have yet another referral for yet another hospital appointment for a CT scan to look for stones, which is fast tracked and should be within the next 10 days, and in the meantime I have strong painkillers. And a bit more respect for the power of a tiny over-active gland in my neck. The painkillers work, but it's not how I intended for the last day of my week off work!

Doctor confirms I have primary hyperparathyroidism, which is what's causing the raised blood calcium, and will refer me back to the hospital to deal with it, and it's nice that it's been found. Edit: aha, I have the results of these blood tests in the post: serum parathyroid hormone 188 ng/L (14-72 is normal), parathyroid hormone 19.93 mmol/L (1.48-7.63 is normal). I'm not quite sure what the difference between these two is :)

Doctor also notes that my blood sugar *is* slightly raised (6.5, below 6 is normal, over 7 is diabetic), that I have slightly too high cholesterol (7), and that they did some liver function tests which show I may have "fatty liver". Overall together they add up to "metabolic syndrome". I asked about Metformin, which he agreed was a good idea. He also suggested statins. And I also asked if it could be related to PCOS (as I've only had 3 periods since coming off the pill about a year ago and am a bit hairier than I used to be) and he suggested they probably do all tie together, so I'm going back on the pill too (which can reduce the risk of womb cancer as well as because I'm bored of condoms: I only really came off it out of curiosity anyway, since I've been on one form or another of contraceptive pill nearly all my adult life. So I have a paper bag full of drugs.

I'm also encouraged to lose weight, which will help with all of the above (apart from the hyperparathyroidism, which isn't connected to the rest). Interestingly he reckons since my weight is currently pretty stable I'm probably not overeating, but also that I probably don't need to cut back from what I'm eating now once I've lost weight, I just need to make some serious changes to lose it, and then keep my eye on the ball to catch it if I start gaining again. I'm not 100% convinced I won't just regain any weight lost with more on top, which is what I've done before. We'll see.

To round off he took height, weight and blood pressure, which I'll list here to remind myself. 1.70m, 110kg, 135/87.

So I went to the co-op and bought lots of fruit and veg and some fat free yoghurt. I'm now contemplating whether joining Slimming World again is a good plan, even if it's only online until I'm more mobile. And at the same time not sure if this is even sensible or possible, but I really do feel like I ought to try it and see if it does fix the metabolic and cholesterol problems. *sigh*

It took an hour to go to the docs and back, and cost 13 quid in taxi fares, but at least I got to buy some more food in the co-op while I was out. 3 more blood samples taken, the results will take another couple of days, and then the doctor will want to make an appointment to talk about them (I'll make sure to make it for later in the morning though, that way the local taxi firm will have finished with the school run and it'll be cheaper).

Right now the ankle seems to have ceased getting much better. I can walk around the house, but if I try any longer distance I've got a really painful step about 1 in 20 or so. And of course all my muscles are weirdly stiff from being used in unusual ways. But I have an offer of a lift into work a couple of days next week, which will be good.

I am becoming rather too fond of Deal Or No Deal and Come Dine With Me, both of which really are car crash TV, but conveniently on at lunch time.

Amusingly Mike also stopped at the co-op on the way home and bought identical bread (something our co-op seems much better at than those in Oxford) and the same chocolate puddings. And he used yesterday's leftover gravy to make a lovely lamb stew, which ended up leaving more gravy. Which we ate while watching Reservoir Dogs, which I'd never seen before. A combination which was perhaps a little unwise. Now I'm off back to my book. I'm 7 books behind in cataloguing the ones I've read this year, which is very lax, but I keep putting it off in order to have more time reading :)

PS the comment spam this time was remarkably relevant, so apologies if I deleted anything genuine. If you wish to make comments but don't have a livejournal account please sign or initial them, if you wish to make anonymous comments which aren't mistaken for spam you could sign them "anon".

As some of you may recall I took part in a clinical study at Addenbrookes in December, where amongst other things they took some blood samples. I was told I wouldn't find out the results of those unless there was anything to worry about.

Last Thursday I received a letter dated and franked the 17th March, which said that while my blood was mostly normal (and blood sugar in particular was fine) they were a little concerned about my blood calcium levels. Normal levels are apparently 2.1 to 2.5 and my reading was 2.55. They wanted me to get my GP to do another test, and if that showed worrying levels they'd talk to me about it.

So on Friday I got a local taxi firm to take me down to the health centre in Shelford and back (3 quid each way) and registered with the practice and waited until a doctor could see me to explain the situation and take the required blood. Which he did very competently, and also advised me that the 4-6 weeks til I should cycle again was probably wise, given the repetitive nature of movement when cycling and the fact it's a pretty serious injury really.

Anyway today the GPs gave me a call and they've asked me to go back tomorrow morning and give them some more blood samples, including a fasting one, which means nothing to eat and drink apart from water after midnight tonight. No prob.

The trouble is of course I looked up hypercalcaemia on the internet, and found that one of the main causes is cancer, and now I'm much more worried than I might otherwise have been. Drat. I could really do without this right now!

PS Thanks all for nice thoughts. I really am only a little worried about it, and writing about these things often helps. And I am at least mildly amused by how easy the internet makes it to be a hypochondriac :)