James Fallows, a writer for the Atlantic, describes his ordeal with the condition, and explains how he wished he had taken care of the disorder earlier, since, as he heard from a doctor, “a parathyroid disorder was about as damaging as smoking a pack of cigarettes per day. It weakened the bones; it raised the risk of heart attacks and some cancers, and kidney stones too; it caused mood disorders; and—I'll confess the most alarming—it led to memory lapses, attention failures, and dementia. The bone-weakening is because the hyperactive gland continually draws calcium out of the bones and into the blood serum."
Garry Handling at the 1994 Emmy Awards.
Photo by Alan Light/Wikimedia Commons/Creative Commons/Attribution 2.0 Generic.
The Parathyroid Peeps, three women in the Bay Area who all had their glands removed, have a website with the mission of educating about this often-misdiagnosed disease. “It is not at all unusual for a patient to go undiagnosed for many years. General physicians are often not knowledgeable about primary hyperparathyroid disease – the symptoms or diagnostic process. High blood calcium is bad!”
This article originally appeared on 08.14.19.