Avoiding Pitfalls That Delay Diagnosis & Treatment is a series of blogs that we will posting in order to shed light on the most common issues patients face that delay diagnosis and treatment of primary hyperparathyroid disease.

 # 1 – Your doctor reports your serum blood calcium is in the normal range. When you review a copy of the report, it is indeed. What could be the problem?  A BIG PROBLEM:  Normal ranges reported vary from lab to lab. Laboratories do not always correct blood calcium values for a person’s age. This is important as normal ranges for serum calcium are age-dependent. Yet labs will often give a normal range for the general population and that normal range may go up to 10.5 mg/dl or higher.

This results in mature adults with serum calcium values over 10.1 being reported as “normal” which often delays diagnosis. According to experts, those whose calcium values fluctuate and/or exceed the upper limit for their age should be evaluated for primary hyperparathyroid disease.

Therefore, it is very important to know what the upper limit of serum calcium is for your age. Here is a link to a hypercalcemia calculator hosted by the Norman Parathyroid Center on  parathyroid.com to help you determine the high limit based on your age. 

Hypercalcemia Calculator : Calculate the upper limit of serum blood calcium for your age

Please join us on Inspire to share your experiences in relation to this topic. Were your calcium values reported as “normal” but you actually were suffering from primary hyperparathyroid disease? You can help others by sharing your journey and/or receive support from those who have been surgically cured.