Saturday, June 26, 2010
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You've just been diagnosed with osteoporosis and you aren't sure what other tests to have besides the DXA. It's a good idea to have blood and urine tests to check for mineral and vitamin metabolism problems, among others, an...
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Dear Pam,
Whew!! I dont believe any doctor in the world would ever provide us with all this information! We keep forgetting the tremendous amount of research you must be doing daily to get all these facts!! I believe we should all print out this page and keep it in our medical files. It will be staggering for the doctors who dont know anything beyond the Dexa scan!! There is not much that I can add here except to say that I dont know how many of these tests will be available here in India and how much they will cost!! And then again -- how would we know which ones to take? Alas, if only the doctors here knew!!
But thanks a zillion, Pam, it is a wonderful research article which would do any medical scientist proud!
Best wishes,
Yours,
Priya
Hi Priya, thanks again for your encouragement and participation. I don't know if all of these tests are available where you live, but they are routine tests for diagnosing osteoporosis. I know when I was first tested, I had all of these tests and some others as well to make sure I didn't have any thyroid, parathyroid or other secondary causes for bone loss.
Hopefully, those who are diagnosed with osteoporosis are getting all of these tests. The only way you'd know if you had a secondary cause for bone loss would be to check the levels on all of these tests.
Ordinarily, you'd want to know if you had a out of range score on these tests, so you could treat those disorders seperately and hopefully improve your bone density scores without osteoporosis meds.
Some of these tests are run when you have a basic metabolic panel, or some other type of blood test; so it's entirely possible you've had some of them done already. If you can get copies of your blood test scores you could look at it, and see what tests you've already had. It would be nice if we had access to one of those labs where you can have tests done, at a reasonable price, without a doctors order like they have in some areas of the U.S. We don't have a lab like that here, but I've heard that others do, so maybe it's only a matter of time till they are available every where
Thanks again for joining us, and you could look into these tests and see if they are expensive, in your area.
Good luck...