Dexa bone scan

Wonderful that you remember her with fondness. I guess that is what we all wish for.
Fed up scale (FUS) = 7/10 cos ticker going bonkers. Hope to lower the score as going on hols with family later today. But they all have bad throats so I may slip down the scale by the end of the week ...

Aw, thanks Whiff.

I do love the way you tell things; you always make me smile.

Nice to spend a minute thinking about your friend, too, and remembering her achievements.

Taking about baths Miss A reminded me of my old English teacher who after she retired I used to go for tea once a month . She had a wooden bench across her bath so she could shower. She was riddled with arthritis. She had an arrangement with her neighbour who had a key and came in everyday day at 10am to clean for her.

My friend was having a shower and the bench collapsed. So she was stuck with hot water pouring over her for a hour before her neighbour came in. Turned the water off but couldn't get her our but covered her in towels and phoned for help . A fire engine came with an ambulance. Should say my friend had lost all her hair and wore wigs. She did make she laugh when she said 2 handsome firemen lifted her out and she said fancy you having to handle my winkley bottom. They told her it was ok love given us a good started to the day and after putting her on the bed they both kissed her cheek . Then the paramedics looked her over to make sure she wasn't seriously hurt.

It was the highlight of her day as they gave her a kiss to. She was in her early eighties. But she never showered again just a flannel wash..

But the way she told me it about tears of laughter were rolling down my face. She still had her Welsh accent even though she moved to England to go to uni . Sadly few years later she fell and broken her hip and died in hospital. But had many years of teas with her when I married my husband went with me then our children.

She was a strong Welsh woman from a mining village so for her to go too uni was a proud time for her parents.

Hope that's given someone a smile . 😊

MissA, getting stuck may be to your advantage.

👨‍🚒

I need a bath, but I have carers to help me in the mornings, and they piddle around with the times.
They end up coming around 20 mins before my boy is due to start school, so I have to let him take preference.

I ran the water hoping someone would arrive.

Now.... I'm looking at it, wondering how my climbing skills are today.
If you never hear from me again, you'll know they weren't as good as I'd hoped.

MissA, great minds and all that.

Sometimes, I am not robust enough to fight back, when people challenge what I post and it can look as if I am hiding.
Moaning about incapacity and pain, may look like a cop out.

However, I am mindful that I have derailed this thread, so I'm off to get dressed with great difficulty.
Last week, I got trapped in an M&S changing room with a dress stuck on my head! Is this what it has come to?
Oh the embarrassment! 🤣

Good for you Iam.

I have been sitting at a 9/10 on the fed up scale on and off since my RA appointment last Friday, with little resolution. I have felt quite hopless, as my pain is also sitting at 9/10.

However, a day with my 11 month old, darling granddaughter yesterday, brought those levels right down. 😍

I hope you feel a bit better as the day goes on.

I was thinking of making a thread, seriously, so people who are under the weather can talk about their aches, pains, swollen bits, sore parts, and inflamed places.
Their lumps and bumps, their itches and patches, their insides and outsides, their ups and their downs.
I get on my own wick moaning about it all, so it must pee others off.

We could. We could compare levels of fed upness . This morning I started about 8 out of 10. Shoulder woke me several times and getting comfortable a challenge. Anyway, I did some of the physio recommended excercise while the kettle boiled and I’m now one cup of coffee into the day. That spaniel is snuggled up next to me and I’m down to a 5 with the aim of getting to 1 out of 10 after a second coffee along with a toasted hot cross bun

Iam64

Can I join the fed up club please- sounds fun x

Then there were three!

We could have a right old moan about anything and everything, without feeling guilty or boring other posters.

Can I join the fed up club please- sounds fun x

My consultant was very pleased that I was taking a vitamin D supplement, she had guessed I was from the level of vitamin D in my blood and said I should continue to take it.

SueDonim

I’m sure your consultant is a respected professor, Marydoll but it isn’t Gransnetters who claim to know better, it’s the very people who employ him - the NHS. From Growstuff’s NHS link ^

Should I take a vitamin D supplement?^
Advice for adults and children over 4 years old^
During the autumn and winter, you need to get vitamin D from your diet because the sun is not strong enough for the body to make vitamin D.
But since it's difficult for people to get enough vitamin D from food alone, everyone (including pregnant and breastfeeding women) should consider taking a daily supplement containing 10 micrograms of vitamin D during the autumn and winter.
Between late March/early April to the end of September, most people can make all the vitamin D they need through sunlight on their skin and from a balanced diet.
You may choose not to take a vitamin D supplement during these months.

Nowhere does it say you need a clinician’s input and you also didn’t mention seasonal Vit D in your post.

If your consultant really has grounds to think we should not be taking Vit D then I hope he is challenging the NHS’s advice and is publicising his evidence so we can make our own minds up.

On the NHS England site (I don't think it's in NHS Scotland )it says
"Some people have medical conditions that mean they may not be able to safely take as much. If in doubt, you should consult your doctor.
If your doctor has recommended you take a different amount of vitamin D, you should follow their advice."
I assume folk with kidney problems should be cautious.

Marydoll I know because I've been tested for Vitamin D and folate deficiency and I ask for the testing to be included in my annual blood test, which the surgery is happy to do.

Yes, let's hang on, just to annoy people.

MissAdventure

Oh Marydoll, a "fed up club" would be marvellous for me.

I feel exactly the same, and find I'm now trying to coordinate different consultants, different issues, in three different hospitals, along with tapering this medication, starting another, weaning on/off, up down and sideways!!!

It is really unsettling, I agree.

💐

I once saw four different consultants at four different hospitals in a week. When told a CT was required, I refused, saying I had had enough!

I'm fortunate in that mine to communicate with each other, but the cardiologist reigns supreme. His word is law and the others defer to him.

Hang on in there. Sometimes it feels like we are making no progress, but hopefully you will get there in the end.
I have developed a stoicism and resilience, I didn't know I had.
You are a very strong woman, a fighter like me!

Oh Marydoll, a "fed up club" would be marvellous for me.

I feel exactly the same, and find I'm now trying to coordinate different consultants, different issues, in three different hospitals, along with tapering this medication, starting another, weaning on/off, up down and sideways!!!

It is really unsettling, I agree.

Miss A We could start the Fed up club.

GN is great for advice, however sometimes it can lead to people being upset, due to conflicting advice.

I am just going to take my clinician's advice and get on with things. I need to stop reading these threads, they unsettle me and I am not in the best place, either physically nor mentally.

On reading other's experiences, I realise that the care I had (up to Covid) was excellent, because I was transferred to a newly established, dedicated bone mineral clinic. Others on here have not been so fortunate.
Unfortunately, I still do not have the results of my annual Dexa scan I had in June '23!
My blood test must be done by the hospital, my surgery won't do them anymore and it is overdue.

I get conflicting advice from the people I see.
Have been told to buy them myself, which I'm happy to do.

Then told I needed stronger than I could buy, so I shouldnt have stopped the prescribed ones. (It wasn't me, it was left off my prescription)
Then told "well we only prescribe it if your levels are low (they are, constantly)

I'm totally fed up with it all.

Our surgery are not prepared to test for vit D levels ( not sensible from economic point of view) but advice older people to take it in winter months.

M0nica

Misadventure the advice to take Vitamin D dates to long before COVID. I have known about this advice for a long time.

I'm all new to this.

I was working, fit, and taking no meds during lockdown (s)

I just take what I'm given, do as I'm told, and my prescriptions are the bane of my life with mistakes, things stopping, starting, being forgotten.

I remember John Campbell talking about vit d being a kind of cure all at the time of covid.

Here is a genuine question. How do people know they personally are deficient in Vitamin D?

I had no obvious symptoms of a deficiency, it was a shock. (The broken bones came years later). Osteoporosis was picked up after scans for R.A. and concerns over long term steroid use.

Possible symptoms of Vit D deficiency include:
Muscle pain
Bone pain
Increased sensitivity to pain
A tingly, “pins-and-needles” sensation in the hands or feet
Muscle weakness in body parts near the trunk of the body, such as the upper arms or thighs
Waddling while walking, due to muscle weakness in the hips
Muscle twitches or tremors
Muscle spasms

However, having been diagnosed in my early thirties with severe osteoporosis, I have been tested annually for Vit D deficiency, as part of routine monitoring, which I have been told should be done once a year.
On each occasion, my levels were so low, they didn't register. This was despite taking hospital prescribed supplements and having a healthy diet. I had to be given very high doses of Vit D on a number of occasions to try and resolve this. Unfortunately I don't seem to be able to retain Vit D.

Do those who routinely take it know the dose which is appropriate for their needs or do they guess? I am curious, because without intervention, I would have no idea how much I need.

Misadventure the advice to take Vitamin D dates to long before COVID. I have known about this advice for a long time.

I’m sure your consultant is a respected professor, Marydoll but it isn’t Gransnetters who claim to know better, it’s the very people who employ him - the NHS. From Growstuff’s NHS link ^

Should I take a vitamin D supplement?^
Advice for adults and children over 4 years old^
During the autumn and winter, you need to get vitamin D from your diet because the sun is not strong enough for the body to make vitamin D.
But since it's difficult for people to get enough vitamin D from food alone, everyone (including pregnant and breastfeeding women) should consider taking a daily supplement containing 10 micrograms of vitamin D during the autumn and winter.
Between late March/early April to the end of September, most people can make all the vitamin D they need through sunlight on their skin and from a balanced diet.
You may choose not to take a vitamin D supplement during these months.

Nowhere does it say you need a clinician’s input and you also didn’t mention seasonal Vit D in your post.

If your consultant really has grounds to think we should not be taking Vit D then I hope he is challenging the NHS’s advice and is publicising his evidence so we can make our own minds up.

Shinamae

Luckygirl3

Hysterectomy (with or without removal of ovaries) is known to increase the risk of osteoporosis - lots of scientific evidence.

I rang my surgery and I had my hysterectomy when I was 55 I distinctly remember them asking me if I wanted the ovaries left and I said no, (I had a fear of ovarian cancer)
Thank you all so much for your advice.Bythe looks of it I need maybe get a vitamin C tablet,I go out in the Sun as little as possible as I don’t like the heat so I will keep taking my vitamin D capsule..

Not vitamin C,calcium 🤦‍♀️