Hypercalcemia, an elevated calcium level in the blood, is a serious situation.
It can cause vague effects, such as a loss of appetite and fatigue.
But if severe or acute, hypercalcemia can affect your muscles and heart rate.
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High blood calcium is not common, but it can develop due to illnesses like ocancer.
Hypercalcemia Symptoms
Many of the symptoms of hypercalcemia are ones that are characteristic of other conditions.
Sudden elevations in calcium levels are generally more dangerous than chronic hypercalcemia.
Additionally, mildly elevated calcium produces different effects than severely elevated calcium.
Calciumis an essential mineral that helps your muscles contract.
If you have excessive calcium, your muscles may twitch or cramp.
Even more importantly, your heart muscle can be affected by excess calcium.
However, know that symptoms can be hard to recognize and the condition can strike without warning.
Complications
Severe hypercalcemia is a major risk to your health.
These issues are rare because the body is generally pretty good at rapidly adjusting variations in calcium concentration.
But if you have an issue like cancer, your body might not be able to correct the problem.
Causes of hypercalcemia include:
Can Eating Too Much Dairy Cause Hypercalcemia?
Nonot if you are healthy, that is.
Your thyroid gland makes a hormone, calcitonin, that keeps your blood calcium level from getting too high.
Diagnosis
Generally, hypercalcemia is detected based on a blood test.
If you have hypercalcemia, there is certainly a medical cause for it.
Your medical team may order some other tests to help identify what that is.
Medical approaches used to decrease one’s blood calcium level include medications and interventions.
Management of the primary problem that caused hypercalcemia is an important part of your treatment as well.
However, illnesses can make it difficult for your body to keep up with excess amounts of the mineral.
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Turner JJO.Hypercalcaemia - presentation and management.Clin Med (Lond).
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