Conditions & Treatments

Diabetes is not uncommon. Nearly 10 percent of Americans are living with diabetes and 1.5 million are diagnosed every year. If you’ve been diagnosed with diabetes, you are not alone.

Whether you have Type 1, Type 2 or pre-diabetes, our doctors, nurses and dietitians are here to provide complete care, support and education. We work with you to manage your diabetes and to prevent complications.

Because diabetes often leads to other health conditions, we coordinate with specialists in weight loss, cardiology, ophthalmology and more to provide you with a thorough treatment plan.

Treating Diabetes

While it’s true that diabetes cannot be cured, it can be controlled. With our team approach to treatment, you get care tailored to your specific type of diabetes and lifestyle.

Your treatment may include:

• Medicine to manage blood glucose levels
• Insulin, particularly for Type 1 diabetes
• Weight management plan
• Nutritional counseling
• Devices to monitor glucose levels, including continuous glucose monitors and insulin pumps

Maintaining a healthy weight with proper nutrition and exercise can make a difference for those battling diabetes. For those in need of additional support, we offer medical weight loss and surgical weight loss programs.

Education is an important part of treating diabetes. We encourage you to learn as much as you can about your condition through our extensive Diabetes Self Management Education program. We provide support, tools and information on topics from stress management to insulin pump training so you can manage your diabetes.

Treatments to Improve Your Quality of Life

Being at an unhealthy weight can prevent you from taking part in activities you enjoy. It can also lead to serious health problems such as diabetes, heart disease and stroke. We are here to help you lose weight, take control of your health and enjoy life.

Our care teams include specialists in weight loss, nutrition, physiology and psychology. They work together to create a long-term weight management plan tailored to fit your lifestyle.

We listen to your concerns and goals and provide a treatment plan just for you. We offer medical weight loss and surgical weight loss options.

Treatments may include:

• Diet—nutritionists create a healthy eating plan.
• Exercise—physiologists build a personalized exercise plan for you.
• Medicines—doctors may prescribe medicines to help you lose weight.
• Counseling—psychologists teach you techniques to help you make positive behavior changes.
• Education—if you have diabetes, you can take part in our Diabetes Self Management Education program.
• Bariatric (weight loss) surgery—surgeons help you to determine the procedure that will best meet your weight loss goals.
• Support groups—support and answers from other patients, a nurse practitioner and a dietitian can help you adopt and stick to your healthy eating and exercise programs.

Losing weight can dramatically improve your health. Many patients living with diabetes who drop pounds can reduce their medicines. Others see improvements in vital signs such as lower blood pressure. While it takes time to adjust to lifestyle changes and to lose weight, the effort pays off. You will feel better, have more energy and live a healthier life.

Some people are diagnosed with osteoporosis when they break a bone. Others discover they have low bone density through routine screening or treatment for another condition such as a thyroid disorder. No matter how you were diagnosed, we are here to take care of you from head to toe.

We are experts in preventing and treating osteoporosis. We provide innovative treatments including vertebroplasty to repair fractured vertebrae and medicines that promote bone growth. We also partner with orthopedic experts in our Fracture Liaison Service to prevent and treat fractures. We work with you to find the best treatment for your needs and lifestyle.

Treatment

Whether you are newly diagnosed, recently fractured a bone or are under treatment to build bone, our osteoporosis team is ready to partner with you. Leading-edge care at Lahey gives new hope to patients at every stage. We provide state-of-the-art diagnostics with bone density testing, as well as serum and urine markers of bone metabolism.

We offer a combination of therapies that can increase bone density and reduce the risk of bone fracture. Our team takes the time to explore all options and talk about potential side effects of treatments that may impact your life.

Treatments we provide include:

• Assistance with making lifestyle changes, such as changes to your diet and home environment
• Hormonal treatments and patient education about hormones
• Medicines to slow bone loss and strengthen bones
• Surgery, including vertebroplasty and kyphoplasty

Coordinated Care for Sexual Dysfunction

Hormone imbalances can affect your body’s sexual function and your physical and mental health. If you are diagnosed with low sex hormone levels or are living through menopause, our experts can help improve the quality of your life.

We work with men and women of all ages to help manage a variety of sexual function conditions, from low testosterone to polycystic ovary syndrome. Our doctors are highly experienced in treating sexual function issues, including for transgender patients.

We provide comprehensive care through our Center for Sexual Function and by working with specialists in gynecology and urology.

Treatments for Sexual Function Conditions

When you come to us for sexual function care, we work with you to find treatments that help you feel like yourself, avoid side effects and reduce symptoms. We use a team approach to ensure you get the coordinated services you need.

Your treatment may include:

• Hormone therapy to treat issues such as low testosterone or menopause
• Medicines to improve sexual desire
• Changes to your medications if a medicine you are taking for another condition impacts sexual function
• Gender transition hormone therapy
• Coordination of transgender medical and surgical care
• Counseling with a therapist if you are feeling anxious or depressed

Some conditions may require surgery. Your doctors will coordinate your care with specialists in gynecology and urology as needed.

Thyroid conditions—which occur when the thyroid and parathyroid glands over-produce or under-produce hormones—are common and highly treatable. Our clinicians are experts in diagnosing and managing thyroid conditions. We deliver answers about your condition right away, thanks to our in-office or ultrasound-guided biopsy procedures.

We use the most advanced techniques to study the thyroid and parathyroid glands and find the most appropriate care for your specific condition.

Treatments

Our care team will create a plan that decreases your symptoms and helps restore hormone balance.

Your treatment may include:

• Regular check-ups—if a thyroid nodule or small tumor exists, but does not cause symptoms, your doctor will monitor your condition over time.
• Ultrasound-guided fine needle aspiration—a biopsy (tissue sample) of a thyroid nodule is obtained to check for changes and the presence of cancer cells.
• Hormone pills—for hypothyroidism (where your thyroid does not make enough of thyroid hormones) you can take medication to replace the hormone your thyroid isn’t producing.
• Antithyroid drugs—for hyperthyroidism (thyroid is overactive and produces too much of the hormone thyroxine), antithyroid medicines might be prescribed to block your thyroid’s ability to overproduce this hormone.
• Thyroid cancer—we offer a multidisciplinary approach in collaboration with the surgery, nuclear medicine and oncology team to diagnose, manage and monitor patients with different types of thyroid cancer.
• Radioactive iodine treatment—taken as a pill, this is a safe therapy for an overactive thyroid. This is also used for treatment of some types of thyroid cancer.
• Surgery—removal of the thyroid or parathyroid gland or nodules is an effective way to treat some thyroid and parathyroid conditions and cancer. Thyroid surgeries we provide include:
  • Parathyroid surgery—parathyroid conditions are treated by removing the abnormal gland(s), called a parathyroidectomy. This can be performed as an open (conventional) parathyroidectomy.
  • Thyroid surgery—thyroid surgery removes all or parts of the thyroid gland stop over- or underproduction of thyroid hormones. This is called a thyroidectomy.

Our doctors and nurses are experts at diagnosing and treating conditions affecting your adrenal and pituitary glands such as Addison disease and Cushing syndrome. We also are highly experienced at caring for pituitary conditions including pituitary tumors. We partner with specialists in surgery, neuroradiology and radiation at the Sophia Gordon Cancer Center.

We provide care that eases health issues caused by these conditions and balances your hormones. We also work with you to manage lifestyle changes to help maximize your treatments.

Treatments

While pituitary tumors can be removed, there are no cures for adrenal conditions. Your care team provides essential treatments to manage hormone levels so that you can live a healthy life.

We use a team approach to figure out what's causing your condition and find the right treatment for you. Your treatment might include:

• Hormone replacement—medicines replace missing hormones, such as cortisol and aldosterone.
• Other medicines—if your body makes too much cortisol, medicines can lower the hormone level.
• Blood tests—regular blood tests ensure your medicines are maintaining the right hormone levels.
• Dynamic pituitary function testing—neuroradiology and interventional radiology procedures to take images of the pituitary gland and gather blood samples.
• Surgery—procedures to remove pituitary and adrenal tumors or parts of the adrenal gland restore normal function.
• Radiation therapy—hard-to-remove or resistant tumors may be treated with radiation therapy.