How is it that your legs are weak and suddenly [paralyzed]?

Xiao Wang, 32, has always been in good health. He can eat, drink and sleep at ordinary times. He is alive and kicking. He never knows what it is like to be ill in what. When he woke up this morning, Xiao Wang wanted to relieve his urine, he suddenly found that he could not move in bed. His legs were like they didn’t grow on him. He didn’t work at all.

This can frighten Xiao Wang. Can’t his legs be paralyzed so inexplicably?

First visit to the emergency room

The ambulance took Xiao Wang to the emergency room. Through the doctor’s examination and tests, it was found that the potassium in Xiao Wang’s blood was obviously low. After the treatment of supplementing potassium such as infusion, Xiao Wang’s legs worked again.

Although the doctor suggested further examination, Xiao Wang thought to himself:

I am very healthy at ordinary times, and there is nothing uncomfortable in other aspects. It is not that the blood potassium is a little low, so it is good to make up for it. There is no need to make a mountain out of a molehill, so there is no need to spend any more money for further examination.

Send him to the emergency room again.

One day a few months later, Xiao Wang was walking on the road when suddenly his legs were weak and he fell to the ground. He could not stand up. Xiao Wang entered the emergency room again. The examination showed that his blood potassium was still low and he returned to normal after supplementing potassium.

Xiao Wang was afraid this time:

Why is your blood potassium reduced repeatedly?

Xiao Wang listened to the doctor’s advice and went to the endocrinology department for further examination.

The main culprit is [hyperthyroidism]? !

A few days later, the examination results came out, and Xiao Wang had hyperthyroidism. It is this [hyperthyroidism] that is at fault. Xiao Wang’s legs are always weak and he is not working.

Aren’t hyperthyroidism patients showing [more than three and less than one]?

Sweating is afraid of heat, eating more is easy to hunger, urinating more frequently and losing weight. In Xiao Wang’s impression, the self-portrait of hyperthyroidism patients should be:

Protruding eyes, large neck, thin face and trembling hands. It is too different from his own image.

Xiao Wang learned that these are typical symptoms of hyperthyroidism patients. However, cunning [enemies] sometimes disguise themselves. Once they disguise themselves and cover up their true colors, it will take more effort to find out the [culprits], and it is inevitable that patients will also suffer more.

Xiao Wang’s symptomatology is called [hypokalemic periodic paralysis]. We know that after getting hyperthyroidism, thyroid hormone in the body will increase, and thyroid hormone can promote diuresis, potassium excretion and magnesium excretion. When the blood potassium level in the body is too low, it is possible to have weak legs and sudden [paralysis] like Xiao Wang’s.

Of course, after controlling the condition of hyperthyroidism, Xiao Wang did not show any symptoms of paralysis.