Menopause and arthritis

D&C for Post- meno bleeding in Sept, banded 11/02/09 and started having hip pain and R knee pain.  Anyone think it could be from menopause drawing the Calcium from my bones.  Difficulty walking.  bought some Glucosimine Chondroitin and wil see fam. Doc at the end of the month.

Margie,

You don't mention whether you are taking a calcium supplement, but if you aren't than I would suggest that, since you are banded, you can take any of them and Walmart has their own brand that is a sugar free chewable.  It can't hurt you, but at our age we definitely need supplements and for us who are RNY or Duodenual (sp?) a definite part of our regime daily. . .  however, seeing your doctor and getting answers from him/her is a good thing. . .

Take care, Laureen

Bones hurting can also be your body trying to adjust to the new weight.

Hi Margie,
I am banded and I take the Citracal Petites - 4 throughout the day.  Your blood work should show if you are in need so have the family doctor test you.  Last time I was checked my Vit. D was low.  So they had me up my pills from 2 to 4 per day.
Bev

I forgot to include - each Citracal Petite is 400 mg Calcium and 500 IU of Vitamin D.  They are coated tablets so they are easier to swallow.  My bariatric surgeon told me that any tablet that is the size of an M&M (bad example LOL) or smaller is OK to take.
Personally I couldn't get used to the taste of the chewables even when they were chocolate flavor.
I really miss the Citracal Chewy Bites.  The ones put out by Bariatric Advantage are nothing like them.
Both my husband and I tried the Glucosimine Chondroitin and both got bad stinky gas LOL.  But it didn't seem to help in the Arthritis department.
Good luck,
Bev

Bev, I am always drawn to the posts about calcium.  I'm also taking citracal petite - I have a feeling  from your post that yours must be smaller than mine (m&m size!).  Mine are 200 mg each and are pretty large, kind of a swollen rectangular shape, but easy to swallow.  I take four a day which is 800 and get extra in my other supplements and from dairy.

Please let me know if there is another version of petites because I would rather they were smaller - esp if yours are 400 mg each.

Kathy B

Kathy,
Mine are a rectangle pillow too. But if you squint and rounded them out they would be around the size of an M&M LOL.  I measured them with a ruler - 1/2" long, 3/8" wide and 1/4" deep.  I keep the bottle in my desk so I checked the back again.  It is 500IU of Vit. D and 400mg Calcium.  The label on the front has "More Vitamin D" on a yellow band at the top of the label.  It's a bottle of 200 tablets.  I got them at Walgreens about two weeks ago.
I hope you can find them.
Bev

Sounds great - I have the yellow band too - but the serving size is two tablets  - for 500 D and
400 C.  So I need to take two to get that or four to get 800 C. 
Check the back to see if the serving size is 2.

AHA! You are right!  I never even check the serving size except on food items.  Usually it is per tablet.   How crazy it that.  Thanks for pointing that out to me.  I guess I need to add one more tablet for a total of five tablets to hit my 1,000 mg of calcium a day.
Take care,
Bev

Margie, if you are as tired of taking pills as I am, you might be interested to know that there are liquid calcium supplements (the one I bought is Wellesse Calcium and Vitamin D, which I got from Drugstore.com) and liquid or drink-powder type Glucosamine & Chondroitin (both Elation brand).  Both are very good tasting and at least to me, vastly preferable to taking pills.  I have been taking the Elation for about a week and my knees have stopped hurting completely.  I spend a lot of time working on my laptop and my knees get very tired from the pressure of it, which can make even straightening my leg to stand up excruciating.  Since I've been drinking the elations mix, no problem!