Weird Health Symptoms you should Never Ignore

Endocrinologists are used to people not knowing what they do. Patients often assume that, for example, Dr. Rasa Kazlauskaite spends her days focused on the “love hormones,” like testosterone and estrogen.

She reminds them that we all have a variety of hormones and hormone-producing glands with important jobs—including the pituitary gland, which oversees everything from growth to metabolism, and adrenal glands, which produce the stress hormone cortisol.

Plus, endocrinologists treat conditions like diabetes, thyroid disease, polycystic ovary syndrome, and even osteoporosis. “We also help people figure out the causes of increased weight and help them lose weight and improve their metabolism,” says Kazlauskaite, who’s the director of the diabetes technology program at Rush University Medical Center. In other words: Endocrinologists encounter a wide variety of symptoms all day, every day. Here are some surprising ones that concern them the most, even though patients don’t usually recognize that they might signal a problem.

A racing heart

When people notice their heart is racing, they often make an appointment with a cardiologist. But sometimes, they need an endocrinologist to get to the root cause—because it’s one of the most common symptoms of hyperthyroidism, says Dr. Rachel Pessah-Pollack, a clinical associate professor in the division of endocrinology, diabetes, and metabolism at NYU School of Medicine. “They’ll say they were having palpitations, they were feeling winded, and they looked at their Apple Watch, and their heart rate was up,” she says. (Anything over 100 beats per minute, for a few days in a row, is generally considered elevated.)

Fortunately, if it turns out to be an overactive thyroid, there are a variety of treatment options, Pessah-Pollack reassures her patients. Depending on what’s causing it—Graves disease or noncancerous growths, for example—that might mean medication or surgery to remove all or part of the thyroid gland. Sometimes, very little treatment is needed: In recent years, endocrinologists have reported a COVID-19-related increase in thyroiditis, or inflammation that can cause hyperthyroidism. “The key with that diagnosis is that it actually often resolves on its own,” Pessah-Pollack says. “No treatment needed, other than a heart-rate medication.”

Itchiness and redness in the groin area, along with increased thirst

Young people, in particular, often show up at the hospital or in their primary care doctor’s office complaining about a rash in their groin area. They assume they have a sexually transmitted infection, Kazlauskaite says—but as it turns out, the rash was preceded or accompanied by increased thirst and hunger, and they actually have a yeast infection caused by newly developed diabetes. “It’s an unfortunate symptom,” she acknowledges. “But people need to know so they can get treated.” Yeast feeds off sugar, Kazlauskaite explains, which is why infections are often triggered by out-of-control blood sugar levels. In addition to figuring out the best way to treat a patient’s diabetes, doctors will typically treat the yeast infection with an antibiotic or over-the-counter antifungal cream.

A hump between your shoulders

Having too much cortisol can cause Cushing syndrome, which is most common in women and affects about 10 to 15 million people per year. The condition leads to rapid weight gain—but the extra pounds don’t always show up in the stomach. Instead, some people gain weight in their face (which is called “moon face”) or develop a “buffalo hump” on their neck, in between their shoulders. “It occurs when the body is putting out too much cortisol for a long time,” Pessah-Pollack says. “Normally, cortisol helps our body function. But if you have too much, you get classic findings on the body.” In addition to a hump between the shoulders, you might also notice you have dark pink or purple stretch marks on your stomach, thighs, or breasts, and that while your upper body is larger, your arms and legs are quite thin.

Feeling too hot or cold

Abrupt changes in a person’s temperature can signal that something is going on with their thyroid. Pessah-Pollack’s patients, for instance, often complain about sweating profusely and feeling hot all the time—yet they used to be the kind of people who never left home without a sweater. “It’s another sign that people sometimes ignore,” she says. “They just think, ‘Oh, I guess I’m changing. I’m just warm now.’” In reality, it could indicate hyperthyroidism, especially when paired with other symptoms.

Thinning eyebrows

Another classic sign of hypothyroidism is losing the outer third of your eyebrows, which is sometimes called “Queen Anne’s sign” in reference to an ancient portrait. “I had a patient who had thin eyebrows, and one side was just gone,” recalls Dr. Libu Varughese, an endocrinologist with Memorial Hermann Health System in Houston. Fortunately, thyroid-related hair loss is typically temporary, and with treatment, most people see their hair return to its baseline. Though truncated eyebrows might be aesthetically annoying, the diagnosis is nothing to stress about, he adds: “We have so many people on thyroid hormone replacement therapy.”

Breast discharge without having a baby

Sometimes, people who aren’t pregnant or postpartum start discharging breast milk—and while it’s most common among women, it can happen to men, too. “Women get scared, like, ‘Oh my God, I might have breast cancer,’” Kazlauskaite says. While it’s important to rule cancer out, this unusual symptom could also point to a prolactin-secreting benign tumor that lives in the pituitary gland—especially if paired with irregular menstrual periods. “Definitely see an endocrinologist,” she urges. There’s a range of treatments that can help reduce the prolactin and stop the milky discharge, including medication and surgery, and patients typically make a full recovery.

Enlarged hands and feet and widening gaps between the teeth

One of the conditions Samson treats is acromegaly, a rare hormonal disorder that occurs when the pituitary gland produces too much growth hormone. It causes bones and tissues to gradually grow in unusual ways: “These patients can actually have growth of their hands and feet, and changes in their facial features,” she says. People with the condition might notice their shoe size has gotten larger, for example, or that their rings no longer fit on their fingers.

Dental issues are also common. That could mean bite changes, tooth separation, an enlarged tongue, or a jaw that grows disproportionately. In fact, dentists are sometimes the first people to raise the alarm about acromegaly and refer their patients to endocrinologists. If it turns out someone does have the condition, they’ll often undergo surgery to remove their tumor; there are also therapies designed to lower growth hormone levels back to the normal range. “Some of the things don’t reverse—if bones have grown, they’re going to continue to have those changes,” Samson says. “But we do see improvement in some of the features because of the decrease in growth hormone. We know that if we normalize their growth hormone, then we normalize their mortality, and that’s really important to us as endocrinologists.”