Question About Parathyroid

[karen547]

Hi everyone- I have been busy with school and stuff so haven't been on as much. Anyways, I have seen a few posts about parathyroid removal, etc, and am wondering how it is determined when you need to have it removed? The doctors have me on Sensipar now to help bring down my levels. I am just curious as to know what determines the removal?


Thanks!

[spacezombie]

The first time I heard that my parathyroid needed to be removed (I had already been on Sensipar for months and months) was when my doctor had the surgeon leave a message on my answering machine. Haha, I ignored them for a few months and tried to bring my PTH levels down with Sensipar, but it just didn't work for me. My PTH was over 2000 when I had the surgery in February. I'd talk to your doctor about this and see if he/she thinks the Sensipar is working.

[aharris2]

Folks, a high pth level destroys your bones!!! If you are above 300, your pth is considered high for a dialysis patient. I believe that 300 is way beyond what is normal for a person with normally functioning kidneys. Yes, let them try sensipar for a while but not for too long. It can be effective, but in Rolando's case, its effectiveness was erratic as was his calcium level.

Again, your bones are at risk. The parathyroid puts out a hormone (pth) which extracts calcium from your bones sometimes in response to high phosphorus and sometimes because they are simply malfunctioning. The result of this is osteoporosis and it happens fast! The results can be devastating (can someone please provide a link to Epoman's posts about his broken hips?)

Rolando has osteoporosis and, perhaps as a result, a broken leg which is healing very slowly in the presence of this calcium-phosphorus-pth metabolism malfunction. He has just had his parathyroids removed. It should have been done a year ago!

[stauffenberg]

To make matters worse, even if you escape dialysis with your bones intact, the massive prednisone dose usually used at the beginning of immunosuppression itself severely depletes your bone mass.  You can't win.

[kevno]

Those parathyrod glands, suppose to be four in the thyroid, about the size of a grain of rice. My four the size of peas. They only found out about me when I broke both my knees. In the x-rays you could see through my hips the bone was so thin. The surgeons talked about putting metal plates in. Once again from me, Me and my big mouth. I said NO WAY! They remove 3 and three quarters of the parathyroids. Within two and a half years you could not see through the x-ray. The bone density had increased. Still took me four years in the hydro pool to walk again.