Hypercalcemia is the medical word for "loftier blood calcium." Information technology is almost never normal and nearly always requires further testing and often treatment of the underlying trouble to bring the loftier blood calcium back into the normal range. Hypercalcemia should not be ignored or just "monitored" considering information technology typically means bad things are on the way. Calcium is one of the most of import minerals in your body that serves many functions and thus it needs to exist kept in a very tight range – you don't want too little OR as well much of it. Because a normal claret calcium is required for good wellness, the measurement of blood calcium levels is function of the standard blood tests when patients have an annual checkup, or get to the physician (or emergency room) when feeling sick. When your medico orders routine claret tests, calcium is ordinarily function of the standard panel (it's in the Basic Metabolic Panel, one of the most mutual blood tests).

What Physicians Need to Know About Hypercalcemia

Many physicians end up on this page after searching "hypercalcemia" online. The most important thing for doctors to know is that hypercalcemia is nigh never acquired by cancer in the ambulatory patient. If you take a patient in your office that isn't dying of cancer (that you take already known most for months or years), then the hypercalcemia is almost e'er due (over 99%) to principal hyperparathyroidism. Cancers do not nowadays with high calcium--in fact, very few cancers are ever associated with high blood calcium, and when they are, the patient is already in the hospital (in the ICU?) and end-of-life preparations have been ongoing for months. An ambulatory patient with hypercalcemia does Non demand whatever form of cancer work up. They practise not demand a CT scan, MRI scan, PET scan or even a chest-x-ray to "rule out" cancer. Virtually every patient in every doctors role (even an oncologist'south office) with hypercalcemia should exist presumed to take hyperparathyroidism and tests run to ostend this diagnosis outlined on our Parathyroid Advanced Diagnosis folio. There is a lot of very valuable data for doctors and patients farther downwards on this current folio, and so continue reading.

Hypercalcemia vs. Normal Calcium Levels Volition Change According to your Historic period

Most labs volition give a normal calcium range from about eight.8 to 10.v mg/dl. Just this doesn't mean that this is a normal range for everyone – it depends on your age (we have a estimator for you farther down on this folio). A value of 10.5 in a teenager is perfectly normal, just 10.v in adult over historic period 35 is too high – this is hypercalcemia. The graph below shows the normal range of blood calcium in light-green and you tin see that it changes every bit we get older. Teenagers and young adults can have normal calcium levels up into the mid 10s (mg/dl). Merely adults over the age of about 35 should have lower calcium levels, not going above 10.0 mg/dl. (Note: Canadian and European version of this graph is at the bottom of this folio). Adult calcium levels commonly range somewhere between 9.0 and 10.0 mg/dl, which is why we like to say that "adults alive in the 9s". It is typically non normal for adults to have frequent or persistent calcium levels in the 10s.

Hypercalcemia changes as we age. The green area shows the normal range for blood calcium according to our age.

Hypercalcemia is almost always caused by Hyperparathyroidism

Hypercalcemia tin can be caused by only a few things. Oft people are told that hypercalcemia is caused by cancer, simply this is extremely rare. We take an entire page on the different causes of hypercalcemia (including different types of cancer) that you tin can read (click here), only information technology is important to empathize that over 99% of cases of hypercalcemia are caused past a parathyroid gland tumor; a disease called hyperparathyroidism.

People with parathyroid disease (hyperparathyroidism) almost always take hypercalcemia: they have blood calcium levels in the 10s or higher. The graph beneath shows highest calcium levels for over 20,000 consecutive adults with parathyroid affliction who were treated at our center. Near one-half of patients with hyperparathyroidism (a parathyroid tumor causing hypercalcemia) take calcium levels between 10.0 and 11.0 mg/dl, and half take calcium levels above eleven.0 mg/dl.

Hypercalcemia: Highest Blood Calcium Levels in 20,000 Patients Undergoing Parathyroid Surgery at the Norman Parathyroid Center

What's wrong with hypercalcemia? Don't I need lots of calcium for my bones?

Hypercalcemia is not good, and actually, can exist quite bad for you. It is now known that even mild elevations in blood calcium (balmy hypercalcemia) can be very detrimental to your overall health over time. The high claret calcium tin can cause many problems with many different parts of the torso, but information technology as well makes people feel bad.

Hypercalcemia will cause symptoms in almost anybody. The most common symptoms of hypercalcemia are chronic fatigue, lack of free energy, loss of interest in things you used to bask, "brain fog" or difficulty concentrating, and trouble with sleep. It likewise causes kidney stones, heartburn or gastric reflux (GERD), headaches, depression, high blood pressure, palpitations or cardiac arrhythmias, and chronic kidney failure. And considering calcium is coming out of your bones, it causes a loss in bone density, leading to osteopenia and osteoporosis. Hypercalcemia tin make you lot miserable. The most pop folio of this large website is the Symptoms of Hyperparathyroidism page.

Here is the most important affair to know about the symptoms of hypercalcemia: they are NOT correlated with how high the calcium is. That is, someone with only a slightly high calcium can feel just as bad as someone with a much higher blood calcium level, and they volition have the same chances of getting all of the complications. Some doctors out there exercise not know this! In medical schoolhouse they were taught that the calcium level determined how bad the affliction was, so a mild hypercalcemia meant a mild disease and worse hypercalcemia meant worse problems. In treating tens of thousands of patients with hyperparathyroidism, we know this is not true. Mild hypercalcemia is simply equally bad as more pronounced hypercalcemia. This is illustrated very nicely in the graph beneath where we looked at over twenty,000 patients operated on for hyperparathyroidism and hypercalcemia. It shows that people with only balmy elevations of blood calcium (between 10 and 11 mg/dl) take just as many symptoms and complications from the high calcium as people with much college calcium levels (above eleven.ane mg/dl).

Hypercalcemia: Frequency of common symptoms and complications of Hyperparathyroidism

Hypercalcemia Causes: An Overview

Hypercalcemia is almost e'er caused by a parathyroid tumor (called primary hyperparathyroidism). Parathyroid glands are tiny endocrine glands in your neck, adjacent to your thyroid. You take iv of them, and the merely thing they do is control blood calcium levels. They practise this by making parathyroid hormone (PTH), which raises the claret calcium level by taking calcium out of your bones. A normal parathyroid gland will produce just plenty PTH to keep your blood calcium level in normal range. A parathyroid tumor will produce more PTH than necessary, which will push button the calcium level up. Parathyroid tumors are benign in near every case, so you don't need to worry well-nigh cancer.

If you have been told that you have hypercalcemia, the overwhelming odds are that you have a parathyroid tumor. There are a few other causes of hypercalcemia, which y'all can read about on our folio on Causes of Loftier Blood Calcium, but they are much, much less common. Hypercalcemia is nearly always due to a parathyroid problem.

Hypercalcemia Diagnosis

Hypercalcemia is diagnosed past a blood calcium exam. If the calcium is high, then you have hypercalcemia. The side by side step is to figure out what the cause of hypercalemia is. Since near all hypercalcemia is acquired by a parathyroid problem, the obvious adjacent step is to measure the amount of parathyroid hormone (PTH) in the blood. This is a elementary claret test. If yous take hypercalcemia and a PTH level that is in the high or normal range, then yous take a parathyroid tumor. Note that a high PTH level isn't required to make the diagnosis of hyperparathyroidism as the cause of the hypercalcemia—but the PTH level can't be low. Scans, x-rays, and imaging tests are Not to be used to diagnose hyperparathyroidism -- it is diagnosed on blood tests lonely. Nosotros take two very first-class pages on the diagnosis of hyperparathyroidism: one) The Diagnosis of Hyperparathyroidism, and 2) Advanced Diagnosis Tricks for Hyperparathyroidism.

Hypercalcemia Treatment

Since hypercalcemia is near always due to a parathyroid tumor, and there are no medications that can treat this – the treatment is to remove the tumor. Fortunately, parathyroid surgery is curative and can exist done in a minimally invasive outpatient functioning. Removing the parathyroid tumor is the only way to cure most every example of hypercalcemia.

Everyone with primary hyperparathyroidism is a candidate for this operation. Equally mentioned above, even "mild" hypercalcemia volition atomic number 82 to problems if left untreated. In that location is no reason to wait for these complications to occur. Become the tumor out of your neck before it does impairment! Read some of our patient testimonials to learn about how this elementary operation can be life-changing.