Ca and PTH testing - the dark side

Hi Everyone

This’ll make you laugh out loud. I’ve just been given some blood test results by the receptionist at the surgery: Ca 2.52 and “yes, you can now have the PTH results that I wouldn’t give you this afternoon when you first ‘phoned because they have now been reviewed by a doctor, so I can give you them” – your PTH level is 38.58 pmol/L. Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?

 

So I asked her if there was a doctor’s comment beside the PTH level – “yes, there is actually – PTH slightly high”.  These people know absolutely nothing!

 

I managed to get the very doctor on the phone and asked her to call the lab and check if this was correct – “oh, yes, it must be correct, it’s what appears on the screen”.  When I told her the highest my PTH had been was 21 when it was measured intra-operatively with 3 hyperplastic PTH glands in situ, she agreed to call the lab.

 

Turns out the PTH analyser had recently been recalibrated in error to 10x, and so all results had been sent out at 10x their correct value ............. I rest my case, I really do!

 

I was saving the unfinished bottle of red for the weekend – changed my mind now for some reason.

Love from Tigerlily x

Wow, just wow.

I think if your PTH was 38.58 I doubt you'd have been well enough to even have a sensible conversation with the doctor! It's the kind of level you expect a patient to have when they've been rushed to hospital for emergency care.

I simply can't believe the doctor would think the computer can't lie. The PTH readings from my lab were unreliable for six months at the beginning of last year and I had to really work hard to get anyone to admit there was a problem. As far as I know they still haven't been open with the GPs about it, but I now have the endiot on tape admitting it. 

It worries me how many patients during that time missed a correct diagnosis because of it (though since it seems virtually impossible to get a pHPT diagnosis from my local health authority, perhaps they wouldn't have anyway.)

So glad you have the medical knowledge to deal with it.

Slightly high! Try medical miracle...seriously....

Love
Dee
xxxxx

Tigerlily
I'd have finished that bottle of red and started another after that.
A xxxx

Cheers, m'Dears - hic!

Tigerlily xxxx

I'm sorry for laughing, Tigerlily, but this is HILARIOUS!!!! Yes sir, those people really know their business, don't they? I get a good laugh often when I go to my appointments. I always type a new medications list for every appointment. Now, I took a very extensive course in medical transcription, so I know many abbreviations, and typing medication lists was GREATLY stressed with this course. The reason I get a good laugh at my appointments is because the assistants who attempt to transfer my list into their records, can never understand the abbreviations I've typed. I often wonder, if a transcriptionist has to learn this stuff, why would a medical assistant not have to? I just find this very funny.

I'm happy they got that all straightened out for you! Yep, hilarious!!

Audrey

Glad you enjoyed that, Audrey - laughter sometimes being the best medicine!

Love from Tigerlily x

OMG Tigerlily are they trying to give you a heart attack. Glad to hear your labs are good. Cheers   Kathi

Good to hear from you, Kathi!

Strange you should say that about the heart attack ...... there has been a mix-up (cover-up?) with some hospital letters. My endo told me to increase my T3 dose when she knew I was scheduled for surgery. This appears to have caused the abnormal heart rate of 117 beats/min that the nurse was worried about at my pre-op checks. My heart rate was also a worry during the surgery "but we dealt with it OK" said my surgeon. Now I have been handed a copy of a consultant's letter purporting to have been sent the week before my surgery on 11 Dec 14 (but received in the post at the GP surgery in early March 2015, and perhaps never received by my surgeon at all) warning that I should tell my surgeon prior to any anaesthesia that I am taking T3.

Paranoid, me?!!              I'm going to write a book about this when it's ever over!!

Love and Hugs from Tigerlily x

Hmmm,  letter arrived at the GP in March.  Makes me wonder about the "mix-up".

So glad though that the pth level ended up being a calibration related level.  As I was reading your level I was thinking oh no.   I didn't want you to have another bad gland. 

When they increased the T3 did they know you were going to have surgery? 

I wonder how many had to be notified about this calibration thing.   It seems labs sometimes get discounted anyway.   Not that they should.

xxx,  Nancy

Hi Nancy - thanks for your concern!

Dozens of letters had to go out about the calibration thing - but I haven't got one yet!!

Yes, she stated both things in the same letter: As you know, Mrs T-L is scheduled for surgery ............ and if she wishes to double her T3 from 20 to 40 mcg per day, that should be OK."

I was having palpitations and couldn't sleep on 20 mcg once a day ... I told my GP today and he asked for copies of the letters. Don't think he'll do anything, but he writes a good letter himself, so will probably get the incident recorded in writing somewhere, which might be a useful safeguard for later.

Have had the report back yet for your MIBI scan, Nancy? Do let us know what they saw.

Love from Tigerlily xxxx

Hi Tigerlily,
      Yes,  I got a call from the University surgical office.  I was hanging on every word the nurse said and she actually said they saw an area on the upper right!  I was so happy. 

       I had asked for a copy of the disc before I left the hospital.  When I looked at it, the only thing I thought looked questionable was that the margin of the thyroid on the right looked noticeably larger so I wondered if that meant anything.  I didn't see a glowing round area. 
       Anyway I am so happy that something was found and I am supposed to go in in 2 wks for an appointment.
        One other kind of concerning thing is that I can see 2 small bright dots of the thoracic vertebrae.  It is scary.  I don't know if this could be a brown tumor, a metatstais?  or is it nothing.  I have had some mild numbness of the right arm for about 10mths.  With the length of time all of this has been going on, I wouldn't doubt that I could have a brown tumor.  Maybe. 
    I found this tonight.  

 http://tech.snmjournals.org/content/41/1/46.full   

   It makes me wonder how many of us could have this especially when I read that people have been walking around with a history of an elevated calcium for years. 

xxx,   Nancy

Love the drifting bunny rabbits.   So cute by the administrators. 

http://tech.snmjournals.org/content/41/1/46.full.pdf   

I hope this will open.  There are bone brown lesions in several parts of the body. 


Nancy