Overactive Parathyroid Glands

Four tiny glands, each roughly the size of a grain of rice, sit behind your thyroid. They have a single, decisive task: to ensure that you have groundedness. Not in the figurative sense — in the literal one. They regulate the calcium level in your blood, and calcium is the substance your bones are made of. It is the mineral of firmness, structure, and stability. Without calcium, you would collapse inward.

In overactive parathyroid glands, something paradoxical occurs. The glands produce too much parathyroid hormone. They attempt with all their force to create groundedness — and do so by dissolving calcium out of your own bones. They take from you the very substance that carries you, in order to redirect it elsewhere. The result: elevated calcium levels in the blood, brittle bones, kidney stones, fatigue, muscle weakness. The gland responsible for firmness dissolves its own firmness.