Private MD News

Hormone testing can catch conditions early

Category: Hormones and Metabolism

Though it may sound somewhat harmless, a hormonal imbalance can lead to serious health conditions.

Recently, a 41-year-old Texas man underwent back surgery to replace three vertebrae in his neck with plastic discs, The Austin-American Statesman reports. According to doctors, the man's condition began with a relatively common hormonal imbalance.

Since the age of 15, Bruce Rossiter experienced chronic neck pain and learned to live with it since the doctors he saw couldn't pinpoint the cause, according to the article. When Rossiter was an adult, it was discovered that he was suffering from hypogonadism, a relatively common hormonal imbalance, which led to him developing osteoporosis.

Mark Burnett, an executive medical director of NeuroTexas Institute, performed the necessary surgery on Rossiter and described his patient's brittle bones to the news provider.

"He was like a 40-year-old man with the spine of a 95-year-old woman," Burnett said. "He developed a 90-degree kink in his neck where the bones just sort of folded over like a book."

While this is an extreme case, people who get hormone testing can determine if there is an imbalance in their body. Some symptoms that are linked to a hormonal imbalance include prostate inflammation, low blood sugar and osteoporosis.