Guest guest Posted February 19, 2008 Report Share Posted February 19, 2008 Hi all, i have a patient who had one of his 4 parathyroid glands removed several years ago due to an abnormal growth there. He was a lifelong tennis player, but since the parathyroid surgery has not been able to exercise regularly. I do not have all the details yet, as his initial appointment is next week. But from what i gather, his primary concerns are muscle wasting and fatigue. He explained that when he exercises the body burns muscle for fuel rather than fat or sugar, so exercise makes him weaker rather than stronger. He came to my office to make an appointment. So i did meet him and noticed he has an extremely thin physique, dry, yin deficient liver-type appearance. Do you have any experience with the effects of parathyroid deficiency? I would love some ideas. (obviously, i will " treat what i see " from TCM perspective. But it would be lovely to get ideas specific to parathyroid/calcitonin imbalance, whether it is TCM or biomed based.) Thanks in advance! ~edith -- Edith Chan, L.Ac. Phone: 415.298.5324 www.EdithChanAcupuncture.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted February 21, 2008 Report Share Posted February 21, 2008 Some speculation. If he only took out one out of four it is a little bit strange, because the other three should compensate for that. but Why the one that was remove had an overgrowth? Maybe that was because it was compensating for the other 3 if they were weak? PTH (parathyroid hormone) is one of the hormones that comes from these glands, calcitonin is the other one. (there is a third I think that is not commonly mentioned). PTH acts to increase the calcium (Ca) in the blood. Makes sure the kidneys and intestines retain Ca, and takes Ca from the bones. Calcitonin on the other hand acts to decrease Ca in the blood, and is made in parafolicular cells of the Thyroid, So to remove one, one might think that the production of PTH decreases and therefor the ability to rise the blood level of Ca decreases, this gives a lack of Calcium. So what does this lack of Calcium do? Calcium is an important component of muscle contraction. See. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscle_contraction Calcium must be there for the contraction to continue, lack of calcium, week contraction. Easy fatigued. Low Calcium can give high Magnesium as these minerals are opponents. High magnesium give some problems as can be read in this: http://www.acu-cell.com/acn.html Signs of excess magnesium. Signs of excess magnesium can be similar to magnesium deficiency and include changes in mental status, nausea, diarrhea, appetite loss, muscle weakness, difficulty breathing, extremely low blood pressure, and irregular heartbeat (http://dietary-supplements.info.nih.gov/factsheets/magnesium.asp) here is an extra link to calcium http://dietary-supplements.info.nih.gov/factsheets/calcium.asp just some quick research on two of the most common minerals, which can get out of balance when PTH is low. Regards Peter Chinese Medicine , " Edith Chan, L.Ac. " <chineseherbs wrote: > > Hi all, > i have a patient who had one of his 4 parathyroid glands removed several > years ago due to an abnormal growth there. He was a lifelong tennis player, > but since the parathyroid surgery has not been able to exercise regularly. > I do not have all the details yet, as his initial appointment is next week. > But from what i gather, his primary concerns are muscle wasting and fatigue. > He explained that when he exercises the body burns muscle for fuel rather > than fat or sugar, so exercise makes him weaker rather than stronger. He > came to my office to make an appointment. So i did meet him and noticed he > has an extremely thin physique, dry, yin deficient liver-type appearance. > > Do you have any experience with the effects of parathyroid deficiency? I > would love some ideas. (obviously, i will " treat what i see " from TCM > perspective. But it would be lovely to get ideas specific to > parathyroid/calcitonin imbalance, whether it is TCM or biomed based.) > > Thanks in advance! > ~edith > > -- > Edith Chan, L.Ac. > Phone: 415.298.5324 > www.EdithChanAcupuncture.com > > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted February 23, 2008 Report Share Posted February 23, 2008 Edith: I am in agreement with Peter in that this patient's symptoms seem to be out of line with the surgical procedure, but that may only mean that this is part of the story. You will surely find out more with your first evaluation. Regarding his muscle " wasting " this might be a key to what else is going on. Or it may be a result of two things. One, the patient may have a low body fat percentage. As an athelete this is not so uncommon. He may simply be providing insuficient fuel for his body during exercise periods or he may be over doing things a bit in an attempt to regain his prior conditioning. And two, he may be metabolically " out of wack " due to medications and residuals from anesthesia. Recovery from surgery takes longer than the time to knit wounds back together. Side effects of anesthesia take many months to wear off, though conventional medicine tends to ignore this if the patient wakes up as expected and is mostly normal in a day or two. In TCM is not suffieicnt to treat only the symptoms, but to continue treatment to " normalize " the tissues, body and person. Herbal treatment post-surgically to rid the heat of anesthesia and other side effects will likely continue 6 months or more. Regarding the why of this patient's visit (though you didn't really say why), might be because of a temporary or partial loss of faith with Western medicine. This person may also feel that this " tumor " is terminal (whether or not he will admit this). He may be " his own worst enemy " so to speak and sabotage his recovery. I have found that atheletes tend to be " all or nothing " regarding activity. If you tell them to tone it down a bit, they hear " stop all activity....forever " . Remind him, gently, that a surgery is a stop sign. One must accelerate gradually from stop to go. You cannot go directly to go here! Crawl, walk, run is the pattern of life and of recovery. How precisely this is done determines the course of recovery, not how fast this is done! Anyway, good wellness with this case and keep us informed. bill Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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