Mayo Clinic Health Manager
Get free personalized health guidance for you and your family.
Get Started
About our e-newsletters
- Free e-newsletters
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- We do not share your e-mail address
Housecall, our weekly general-interest e-newsletter, keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics with timely, reliable, practical information, recipes, blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts and more. Our biweekly topic-specific e-newsletters also include blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts, and other useful information that will help you manage your health.
Housecall Archives
Mayo Clinic Housecall
Stay up to date on the latest health information.
What you get
- Free weekly e-newsletter
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- Recipes, tools and other helpful information
- We do not share your e-mail address
Symptoms
By Mayo Clinic staffIf you have hypercalcemia, you may have few or no signs and symptoms, particularly if your hypercalcemia is mild. More severe hypercalcemia symptoms may include:
- Nausea and vomiting
- Loss of appetite
- Excessive thirst
- Frequent urination
- Constipation
- Abdominal pain
- Muscle weakness
- Muscle and joint aches
- Confusion
- Lethargy and fatigue
The amount of excess calcium in your blood isn't necessarily related to the severity of your signs and symptoms. For example, older people are more likely to have pain and weakness in their muscles.
When to see a doctor
Contact your doctor if you develop signs and symptoms that may indicate hypercalcemia, such as excessive thirst, frequent urination and abdominal pain.
- Disorders of calcium concentration. The Merck Manuals: The Merck Manual for Healthcare Professionals. http://www.merck.com/mmpe/print/sec12/ch156/ch156g.html. Accessed April 11, 2009.
- Agus ZS. Etiology of hypercalcemia. http://www.uptodate.com/home/index.html. Accessed April 10, 2009.
- Hypercalcemia (PDQ) health professional version. National Cancer Institute. Accessed April 11, 2009.
- Dietary supplement fact sheet: Calcium. Office of Dietary Supplements http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/calcium.asp. Accessed March 8, 2009.
- Carroll MF. A practical approach to hypercalcemia. American Family Physician. 2003; 67: 1959.
- Bergson EJ. Sestamibi scans and intraoperative parathyroid hormone measurement in the treatment of primary hyperparathyroidism. Archives of Otolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery. 2004; 130:87.
- Hyperparathyroidism. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. http://endocrine.niddk.nih.gov/pubs/hyper/hyper.htm. Accessed April 14, 2009.
- Agus ZS. Treatment of hypercalcemia. http://www.uptodate.com/home/index.html. Accessed April 10, 2009.
- Nippoldt, TB (expert opinion). Mayo Clinic. Rochester, Minn. April 20, 2009.
