What are the symptoms of hyperparathyroidism?

The most common symptoms of hyperparathyroidism are chronic fatigue, body aches, difficulty sleeping, bone pain, memory loss, poor concentration, depression, and headaches. Parathyroid disease also frequently leads to osteoporosis, kidney stones, hypertension, cardiac arrhythmias, and kidney failure. This is a devastating condition if left untreated.

Is parathyroid disease serious?

Parathyroid disease, called hyperparathyroidism, is a serious disease that becomes very destructive with time. The longer a person has parathyroid problems the more problems and destruction of body tissues it causes, including osteoporosis, high blood pressure, kidney stones, kidney failure, stroke and heart rhythm problems. Because it is a serious and progressive disease, hyperparathyroidism should not be watched or monitored since the destruction will continue as long as the disease is present. Importantly, this disease makes most people feel bad by causing many symptoms while it slowly causes problems throughout the body.

Since parathyroid gland disease (hyperparathyroidism) was first described in 1925, the symptoms have become known as “moans, groans, stones, and bones…with psychic overtones”.  Nearly all patients with parathyroid problems have symptoms. Sometimes the symptoms are really obvious, like kidney stones, frequent headaches, fatigue, and depression. Sometimes the symptoms are not so obvious, like high blood pressure and the inability to concentrate. If you have symptoms, you are almost guaranteed to feel remarkably better once the parathyroid tumor has been removed. As we often tell our patients: “you will be amazed at how a 16 minute mini-procedure will change your life!”

The symptoms of hyperparathyroidism are different in different people. Sometimes people have symptoms making them miserable within the first year or two of having high blood calcium. Other times it can go 6-8 years without causing too many problems other than fatigue, bad memory, kidney stones, and osteoporosis. But make no mistake about it, hyperparathyroidism kills people–it just takes 25 years to do so  (read blog on this topic). Hyperparathyroidism is a simple benign disease that will slowly destroy your body and take away the “joy of life” while it does so. It will make you miserable! Keep reading to see how this hormone-producing tumor makes you feel bad. The good news is that hyperparathyroidism is typically very easy to cure if you have a surgeon with lots of experience.