R Smith, Author at Be Social, Get Success

During the past few days I have been posting about my illness, Hyperparathyroidism. Not many people know about it and it often goes undiagnosed or misdiagnosed. You can read my previous posts, “What Is Wrong With Me?” and “Hyperparathyroidism – What is it?” by clicking on the links. Once I had a diagnosis it was obvious that I needed to have surgery. I was sent to Pittsburgh to an Endocrine Surgeon. She did tests and scheduled my surgery for March 19, 2012 at 7:15 AM.

I had to be at the hospital at 5:00 AM. We traveled to Pittsburgh the evening before and stayed at the UPMC Family House. I arrived at 5 AM and it seemed like hurry up and wait. I was the first into the pre-op holding room and it seemed to take forever for someone to come and talk to me about my anesthesia, etc. My surgeon came in to ask if I had any questions or concerns before the surgery which I thought was nice.

Before long, I was being wheeled into the OR. They intubate you and start a second line in your ankle so that they can draw blood and test your calcium and PTH (Parathyroid hormone) levels during surgery.

Parathyroidectomy Surgery

This is a picture of an actual parathyroidectomy in progress. They slide the vocal cords over and slide the thyroid and they look at the Parathyroids. They find the bad gland and remove it. Then do blood work, if after 10 minutes the calcium level does not drop, they look for additional glands that might be affected.

They do a variety of scans and X-rays prior to the surgery to try and locate the gland that is causing the problems.

In my case, the gland causing the problem was not showing up on any of the scans. During the surgery they examined three of the glands that appeared fine and then had to make a second cut to do further exploring of my neck to find the missing gland. It was hidden under my collar bone. The gland was the size of the end of your finger. 400 times the size of a piece of rice. Once it was removed my calcium and PTH levels dropped immediately.

I am very thankful that I had this surgery done in 2012 and not back five or ten years ago. The surgery is much less complicated now. Five or ten years ago I would have had a 7 – 10 inch scar on my neck from under one ear to the other. The wound would have been held together to heal with staples which would have left a railroad track like scar across my neck. See the pictures below.

Picture from Parathyroid.com

picture from Parathyroid.com

Thanks to modern medical science and the many advancements in technology, my incisions are only about 1.5 inches each and the wound is held together with dissolvable thread that hopefully will only leave a small scar. Below are pictures of my neck the evening of my surgery.

My neck the night my surgery was completed.

Neck after Surgery

There are several possible complications from this surgery. You could have temporary or permanent voice change or loss. If they make a mistake and touch the wrong nerve you could lose the ability to breath without a tracheotomy. There is the chance of additional trauma to the neck. I was fortunate and had no problems. My voice was a little hoarse for a few days, more from the tube down my throat than anything else. The neck pain was/is minimal. My biggest problems were post anesthesia issues and calcium level fluctuations.

Tomorrow, I will discuss my recovery, what YOU need to know about hyperparathyroidism, and provide a post op video discussing my surgery.

Did you know about hyperparathyroidism before reading my posts?

In yesterday’s post “What is Wrong With Me?” I discussed my symptoms and how I found out I had hyperparathyroidism. Parathyroid disease is called “hyperparathyroidism”, affecting 1 in 1000 people causing high blood calcium–which leads to serious health problems. It is important that people learn about this little known disease.

Hyperparathyroidism
Hyper – too much
Parathyroid – parathyroid gland
Ism – a disease or condition

I didn’t even know I had parathyroids or what they did. I had heard of the thyroid and thought this might be part of it. I was wrong! They are neighbors and live next to each other. But they each have very different jobs. Both are in your neck. The thyroid is behind your voice cords and the parathyroid sits behind the thyroid. The thyroid regulates your metabolism. The parathyroids regulate the calcium in your blood and eventually the calcium in your bones.

Parathyroid Glands

The parathyroid consists of 4 rice size glands, two on the right and two on the left. They constantly regulate the calcium in the blood. Why is this important? Calcium is the most important element in our bodies (we use it to control many systems), so calcium is regulated very carefully. Parathyroid glands control the calcium. The calcium in your blood regulates your heart rhythm by acting as a conductor of the electric current, it also enables the electrical current in all nerves, muscles and brain. It provides strength to the bones and calcium reserves are also stored in the bones, Calcium is the most closely regulated element in our bodies. It is the ONLY element / mineral that has its own regulatory system (the parathyroid glands).

When one or more of the rice size glands becomes diseased by a tumor it goes crazy and constantly says you need more calcium.

No matter how much calcium you have in the blood, it says it needs more and more and more. The only place to get this is to pull it out of the muscles and the bones. It depletes calcium stores in the bones and other parts of the body thus causing many and varied symptoms. It makes humans feel awful. It affects several systems in your body including your nervous system, brain function, heart function, and skeletal system. If not treated it will ruin your kidneys, liver and arteries, causes strokes and cardiac rhythm problems. It causes kidney stones and osteoporosis; and can even increase the risk of cancers such as breast cancer, colon cancer and prostrate cancer.

It is important to know that patients with un-treated primary hyperparathyroidism will die an average of 5-6 years earlier than their peers, due to increased rates of heart disease, stroke, and several types of cancers. Hyperparathyroidism is a more deadly disease than high cholesterol. When the parathyroid tumor is removed, the risks of these complications decreases.

The only cure is surgery to remove the gland that is acting up. No medicine will fix this or slow down the process. There is no way to treat this but there is a cure and the cure is surgery.

Check back tomorrow to learn about my surgery (including pictures) and how modern medical science has improved the procedure.

Leave me a comment if you found this information helpful or know of someone else who has or had hyperparathyroidism.