The lowdown on transdermal calcium

Julie, you are the best lab rat ever!! Hope this finally works for you-thanks for the info.
-Wanda

So glad you are doing better!  It must be frustrating to be "unique" in this manner.

Just wondering about the Seablue... I went to the website and can not find vitamin dosages.  Do you know how much is in there, or how much we would absorb thru the skin?  Heck, I would use this as a "just in case", rub it all over, and slide into the doctors office if I thought it would work...

The doctor told me over the phone, and now I've forgotten, as I was talking to her while driving.   I think that three applications of it equalsl 1500 mg oral calcium.   Now that's what a normie needs, approximately, and since we're absorbing this through the skin and not the gut, technically, that's all we should need, but I'm still taking oral calcium to be on the safe side.

The gel's kinda icky - it's salty and sticky and I don't like it, but I persisted in using it.  

Julie, is this in a patch you stick on your skin or do you take the gel orally?  

The gel comes in a pre-filled syringe, and you rub it into your skin.   Tonight, I tried applying the gel and then putting a layer of lavender skin cream on over it after I'd rubbed it in, and it felt MUCH better.

I have a got a couple more questions:  Is the transdermal form as constipating as the regular stuff?  Does your insurance cover it since it prescription and if not how expensive is it?

Nope - since it bypasses the digestive tract, it's not constipating.  It's expensive, $140 for a two month supply, but my insurance company reimbursed me for it.   The cream, which I just ordered, is much cheaper - $27 for one month, but because it's not compounded, is not covered by insurance.

Thanks for the info. I will have to talk to my doc and insurance about this.  The citrate tablets really do a number on me.

Julie, thanks so much for posting this. I am so glad you are doing better.  I have a question.  You wrote:

Lo and behold though - I had my PTH done last week, and it's gone from a 113 to a 77!   That must mean that the transdermal calcium must be working! 

How do you know it is the transdermal calcium that's working and not the sublingual D?  Or both?

-Jenny 

A couple things lead me to surmise this - first, I'd been taking massive amounts of IV Vitamin D (Calcitriol) for months and it had not dropped.    Also, again, I took the sublingual D for I think about a month before starting on the calcium gel, and still with no drop in PTH.   First and foremost, your PTH is a calcium regulator - it respondes to changes in serum calcium levels - low calcium, high PTH, and vice versa.    A lot of us DS'ers think about D, think about PTH, and fail to realize the crucial role of calcium (and actually magnesium and phosphorus) in the whole feedback loop.   Your parathyroid glands work in several different ways in an attempt to bring calcium levels back up to normal:  it takes calcium from the bone, stimulates activation of D in the kidney, which in turn increases absorption of calcium from the intestine, and suppresses the excretion of calcium into the urine.     Once calcium levels increase in th blood, PTH decreases.   One just doesn't work without the other - you can take buckets and buckets of D, but until you start increasing absorption of calcium, your D and your PTH are gonna go nowhere.     It's a very delicate balance, eh?