Symptoms such as sore legs, weakness and pain could signal conditions other than orthopedic disorders, Cathay General Hospital physician Wang Wen-hung (王文弘) has said, citing the case of a 63-year-old woman who had the symptoms due to hyperparathyroidism, a condition caused by overactive parathyroid glands.
The woman had over the past five years suffered from sore legs and weakness, so she got foot massages and received qigong treatment, and visited hot springs, but to no avail, Wang said.
She also sought help from orthopedists, who prescribed medication and intra-articular hyaluronan injections at the knees for osteoporosis, but the symptoms were hardly relieved, he added.
Photo: Lo Chi, Taipei Times
She used a cane to walk, had a poor appetite and was fatigued, Wang said, adding that her weight dropped from 62kg to 46kg over the period.
She eventually sought medical help at Cathay General Hospital, where Wang said he diagnosed her with hyperparathyroidism, which causes hypercalcemia — a condition in which the calcium level in the blood is above normal and can weaken the bones.
She underwent surgery for primary hyperparathyroidism 10 years ago, when surgeons removed a benign tumor in the parathyroid gland, he said.
Her latest symptoms were caused by an increased calcium level in the blood, as her hyperparathyroidism had relapsed, Wang added.
The incidence rate of primary hyperparathyroidism is about 25 to 30 people per 100,000 people, and is highest in the 50-to-60 age group, he said.
It is a common disorder more often diagnosed in postmenopausal women, he added.
Hyperparathyroidism not only affects the bones by overproducing the parathyroid hormone in an attempt to increase the amount of calcium in the blood, it can also increase the risk of kidney disease, including kidney stones and kidney failure in serious cases, Wang said.
Primary hyperparathyroidism can be controlled by medication if the symptoms are mild, but if the condition gets worse or develops into other complications, then surgery is the only option for treatment, which can cure 95 percent of all cases, he said.
People with hyperparathyroidism should undergo checkups regularly to monitor their health condition, he added.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater