re diagnosed with RA and have vitamin D deficiency

[Guest guest]

Althea,

  How absolutely horrible you had to go through all that time with no treatment.

The doctors should have listened to you symptoms.  Glad you are getting

treatment now and hope it works fast for you. 

When I changed rheumatologist last year, the new one tested for Vitamin D and I

was deficient also and he started me on 50,000 IU a week also.   I am seeing a

doctor of osteopath now and she has changed my doseage to 10,000 IU a day.  My

Vitamin D count had come up to 50 something and she thinks the 10,000 IU a day

will get me to the 70 or 80s'.    The Vitamin D helped relieve my shoulder pain

in about 3 weeks or maybe it was my imagination. 

Just curious, which test was it he used that showed positive for RA?

Hope you or no one else has to go through what you have again.

 

 

re diagnosed with RA and have vitamin D deficiency

Posted by: " blueroses11 " altheafoster@...   blueroses11

Tue Aug 24, 2010 7:30 pm (PDT)

it has been a long time since I posted here - been a long 2 1/2 years for me...

2 1/2 years ago my RA doc left for CA - we are here in OK... well o other RA

doctors here took my insurance...

I had been doing really well... was on Enbrel and all my blood tests had been

coming back normal - was feeling pretty good for having severe RA...

Well they finally sent me to another doctor and because of the normal blood

tests he said I didn't have RA so they took me off all of my RA meds... cold

turkey...

well I started feeling worse and worse - went back to my doc and they sent me

for tests well they were still normal so they decided that I really didn't have

RA...

so why oh why did it take me 3 and 4 hours to get moving every day... and when I

sat down during the day couldn't get back up... I was miserable and all they had

me on was an anti imflammatory and pain meds...

So then - after 2 1/2 years a new RA doctor comes into town - he takes my

insurance again... they send me to him... he diagnoses me again with RA... I am

RA positive on the one test which he said should have given the other doctors

there first clue that I had RA...

He was amazed that I was positive - he figured since they had given me such a

hard time that i had to be negative and they had problems diagnosing with

X-rays...

so then he looked at my X-rays and said - it is here and here and made me get up

so he could show me where it was ... said this way if he ever wasn't my doctor

again and I once again had this problem that I could show them...

so he started me on MTX and folic acid... it is kicking my butt - exhausted...

upset stomach and headache... but since the TB test had to be done before he

could again start the Enbrel I had to wait... but I go back to see him in Sept

and he will start the Enbrel -

I feel so vindicated.. . and I know that with the Enbrel I should start feeling

better this fall and that I don't have to shudder about fall/winter and spring

coming... since the only season I do half way good in right now is summer...

But there is that light at the end of the tunnel again...

I do have one other thing that they found - I have a severe Vitamin D

deficiency.. . has anyone else been diagnosed with this... they have me taking

50,000IUs once a week...

So for the moment the pain pills keep me a little bit afloat but my sprits are

so lifted that I have been diagnosed again and I am not a crazy person... wish I

didn't have it but it is nice to know that it isn't all in my head!!!