Hello and this is my story - Osteoporosis Message Board

too_tired · 08-03-2006, 06:52 PM

Hello..I'm glad I found this board and would like to say I have read and learned so much from all of you.
About me? I am 41 years old, a RN, seperated x 4 years, mother of 2 (a girl 20 and a boy 18) I have been diagnosed with Hep C, fibromyalgia, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, and most recently moderately severe osteoporosis with a <10 year fracture risk. I have suffered from kidney stones since I tried to pass the first one at 29. I was in a car accident when I was 28 and blew my L5-S1 disk and have had a microdiskectomy, a complete hysterectomy 8 years ago d/t severe endometriosis. Needless to say on most days it's a challenge to keep going. All my energy seems to go to work and when I get home I just crash. I found out about the osteoporosis just about a month ago. I did some research because my doctor put me on evista, fosamax, vit D and calcium. I was worried about developing more kidney stones...During my research (looking under keyword calcium metabolic disorders thinking it was weird to have the osteo and the kidney stones) I found here

It was at my request I got the DEXA scan because I have not taken HRT d/t family history of breast cancer and was wondering if I needed to take something..needless to say osteoporosis was not what I expected..and on most days I feel ancient but to have some test confirm my spine thinks it's over 70 and my hips think they're 55!!
So I found information on hyperparathyroid and when I saw the list of symptoms I thought "that's me!" I called the Dr's office and requested SeCa, Phos and PTH.. I am low normal for calcium and phosporous and I just got the results of the PTH and it's High ...so next week I'll call the Dr. to proceed to the next step..But if I wasn't a nurse and didn't know what questions to ask, what tests should be done etc I would still be totally ignorant of what was going on...The bummer of it is, I'm going up to a northern Ontario hospital on James Bay and will not be near a hospital..I leave Sept 4..I'm thikning that the chances of getting this taken care of in the next four weeks are next to nothing...
Anyway...that's me..hope I haven't yakked on too long..Hoping to learn more from you gals...Anne

CrohnieToo · 08-04-2006, 04:49 PM

Welcome to the forum, TooTired! Every three months my Endocrinologist scripts a PTH intact, serum calcium and vitamin D 25 hydroxy. About every six months we do a PTH intact w/ionized calcium, vitamin D 25 hydroxy and vitamin D1 25 hydroxy. He has me on 50,000 IU vitamin D weekly, just reduced from 100,000 IU vitamin D weekly for close to 2 years. I don't take a calcium supplement. I've been on Forteo for 11 months. My PTH has always been in normal reference ranges as has my serum calcium, my ionized calcium was a little high the first couple of months I was on vitamin D.

I have Crohn's disease and COPD as well as the osteoporosis. I'm doing pretty good w/all three .... well the COPD isn't as cooperative as I would like ....

Anyway, we are glad you've joined us and look forward to trading stories and experiences and what does and doesn't work for us.