Para Thyroid

There are 4 parathyroids glands. We all have 4 parathyroids.

Except in rare cases, parathyroid glands are in the neck behind the thyroid.

Parathyroids are NOT related to the thyroid (except they are neighbors in the neck).

The thyroid gland controls much of your body's metabolism, but the parathyroid glands control body calcium. They have no relationship except they are neighbors.

Parathyroid glands make a hormone, called "Parathyroid Hormone".

Doctors and labs abbreviate Parathyroid Hormone as "PTH".

Just like calcium, PTH has a normal range in our blood...we can measure it to see how good or bad a job the parathyroid glands are doing.

All four parathyroid glands do the exact same thing.

Parathyroid glands control the amount of calcium in your blood.

Parathyroid glands control the amount of calcium in your bones.

You can easily live with one (or even 1/2) parathyroid gland.

Removing all 4 parathyroid glands will cause very bad symptoms of too little calcium (hyp0parathyroidism). Hyp0parathyroidism is the opposite of hypERparathyroidism and it is very rare... only one page of this entire site is about hypOparathyroid disease.

When parathyroid glands go bad, it is just one gland that goes bad about 96-98% of the time--it just grows big (develops a benign tumor) and makes too much hormone.

When one of your parathyroid glands go bad and makes too much hormone, the excess hormone goes to the bones and takes calcium out of the bones and puts it in your blood. It's the high calcium in the blood that makes you feel bad.

Everybody with a bad parathyroid gland will eventually develop bad osteoporosis--unless the bad gland is removed.

Parathyroids almost never develop cancer--so stop worrying about that!!!

There is only ONE way to treat parathyroid problems--Surgery.

Mini-Surgery is now available that almost everyone can/should have. You should educate yourself about the new surgical treatments available.