vitamin-d-2 and Back-Pain

In a prospective randomized clinical trial comprising 22 postmenopausal women with backache and a halisteretic spine with crush fracture(s), 12 women completed a 12-week therapy with sodium fluoride, calcium and calciferol and 10 with placebo. A statistically significant improvement (p less than 0.05), evaluated by a four-stage scale on pains, infirmity, and consumption of analgesics, was observed in the actively treated patients.

Topics: Aged; Back Pain; Calcium; Clinical Trials as Topic; Drug Therapy, Combination; Ergocalciferols; Female; Fluorides; Humans; Menopause; Middle Aged; Osteoporosis; Prospective Studies; Random Allocation; Sodium Fluoride

Topics: 25-Hydroxyvitamin D 2; Absorptiometry, Photon; Aged; Alendronate; Alkaline Phosphatase; Back Pain; Bone Density; Calcium; Ergocalciferols; Female; Humans; Lumbar Vertebrae; Osteomalacia; Osteoporosis, Postmenopausal; Treatment Outcome

Proximal muscular weakness is a feature of many metabolic bone diseases but is not well recognized in spinal osteoporosis. Thirty-six post-menopausal women presenting with back pain, with or without osteoporosis, were therefore studied in order to define the relationship between abnormal electromyographic findings and disturbed vitamin D metabolism, as both low plasma 1,25 dihydroxy vitamin D concentrations and malabsorption of calcium have been reported in osteoporosis. Patients with abnormal electromyograms had lower concentrations of plasma 1,25 dihydroxy vitamin D (mean 78.3 pmol/l, SD 20.5, n = 15) than normal subjects of similar age (mean 110.4 pmol/l, SD 39.4, n = 21; P less than 0.01), but electromyographic abnormality was not associated with changes in radiocalcium absorption, plasma 25 hydroxy vitamin D, plasma calcium or phosphate or urinary calcium or hydroxy-proline excretion or impaired renal function. There was no relationship between abnormal electromyography and osteoporosis assessed by spinal radiographs and iliac crest biopsy. These findings are consistent with our previous suggestion that muscle weakness in many unrelated bone disorders is related to low plasma 1,25 dihydroxy vitamin D concentrations, but suggest that there is no relationship between proximal myopathy and spinal osteoporosis in post-menopausal women.

Topics: 25-Hydroxyvitamin D 2; Aged; Back Pain; Calcitriol; Calcium; Electromyography; Ergocalciferols; Female; Humans; Menopause; Middle Aged; Muscle Hypotonia; Muscles; Osteoporosis

Topics: Adult; Anticonvulsants; Back Pain; Depression; Electroencephalography; Electromyography; Ergocalciferols; Female; Folic Acid; Hemoglobins; Humans; Intelligence; Microscopy, Electron; Muscular Diseases; Osteomalacia; Paralysis; Phenobarbital; Phenytoin; Thiazines; Vitamin D

Porcine calcitonin was used to treat three patients with hypercalcaemia due to vitamin D intoxication. In two patients a rapid and sustained fall to normal in serum calcium occurred within three days, in the third patient normocalcaemia was achieved in seven days. In view of its rapid and sustained effect calcitonin may be of value in the urgent treatment of hypercalcaemia due to vitamin D intoxication.

Topics: Aged; Animals; Back Pain; Calcitonin; Ergocalciferols; Female; Humans; Hypercalcemia; Hypoparathyroidism; Middle Aged; Poisoning; Swine; Vitamin D