60 ish lady with mild Rheumatoid arthritis, currently inactive, but
had a low dose of Prednisolone for a year , ending a year ago.
Rheumatologist arranged bone densitometry which reports a relative
risk of # that seems to be saying 2.9
(I wrote saying it would be somewhat helpful if the reports gave
absolute risks as well as relative, a while ago)
Advised by Rheumatol to take prophylaxis against bone loss, tried
Calcitriol, nausea caused stopping.
Second advice was try Didronel and Calcium.
She came to me having read the package insert and noting a relative
contraindication since she has had a large kidney stone and partial
nephrectomy, and doesn't want another.
So, the questions I set myself were:-
- what is her absolute risk of hip vertebral or other significant
fracture?
- what is the risk of her getting a stone due to taking the calcium
supplement?
In order that we could at least deal with some numbers instead of
vague generalisations.
I looked at Pubmed and found several hits, but not to thngs I have
available.
http://www.hon.ch/ gave me a couple of sites which make references
to the change in risk of stones with Calcium supplementation,
including one paper that is reported to have found a _reduced_ risk
of stone in men with a high intake.
I don't feel I am doing very well at this, and yet it should be a
fairly common question to look for an answer to.
Any pointers would be welcome.
--- OffRoad 1.9r registered to Adrian Midgley
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