Osteoporosis

Well, it's official.  My last DEXA showed a 9% decrease in density.  I am down from a -2.2 to an official dx of osteoporosis.  That's what my year of steroids got me. 

But, I've been doing alright holding on the rectal budesonide.  I just have to understand if I can continue those with the bone issue.  I am two weeks past the date I skipped my Tysabri infusion, so hoping I am succeeding in discontinuing that one.  Geez...  This DD owes us all a break!!!

I just wanted to let you know what my Endocrinologist has me doing.  I take a prescription strength Vit D, 50,000 IU 1 X Wk, Plus 1200mg Calcium a day, and even though I had my tubes tied, she wanted me to take birth control pills to increase my hormone levels so that I could absorb more of the calcium.  Something must have worked because over the last few years, each time I have had a bone density test my levels have improved.  At this point, I am pretty low on my prednisone dose and she would be OK with me stopping the B/C pills.  I'm not sure I want to because I had pretty bad periods before and they have gotten things under control.  But, the point is that I couldn't take the Fosamax type products so we needed to find something else and this seemed to do the trick.  I do still get the occassional compression fracture, but my bone density has gotten better, and for a 43 year old thats pretty good.

I read about this websitein Oprah magazine. You can put in a bit of info about yourself and the scores from a bone scan and it gives your chance of a fracture. might be interesting for those of us who deal with bone loss. yp

http://www.shef.ac.uk/FRAX/

Obviously I can't take fosamax, and doubt I would if I could. I was on Evista for year though. It didn't bother the CD and I got good bone growth. I stopped taking it though, because I take enough stuff. I increased my calcium intake and will go it from here.