I just wanted to share my two cents in this matter. Last week I was diagnosed with osteoporosis. I do not know how much bone loss I have in my hip. Two years ago I have my bone density scan that showd I was on the border line of problems with my hip. Now that I am diagnosed like Susan I am now taking Fosamax once a week. The funny thing is I am one of these people who as a child always got caught not takiing my meds and for 6 years did not take them.I am still trying to figure out when I was oversurpressed so I know when the damage was done.

The two things I have recently found out about our steriods is that they leech out calcium out of our bones and remove potassium from our systems.I had not heard of the problems with potasium until I was hospilized last month for way to to potassium. Wheat my new Endo told me was that even though all my doctors and I had 3 different ones run these test in 2 months was that even though my test came back normal I was still too low on potassium. He said that the body will remove the potassium from the cells and the last place it falls is in th blood serum. So my doctors told me since all the looked at was the test was I was just fine. For two months prior to all this I was having problems with pain by my kidneys and almost no urine out put. I was not hungry nor thirsty and on most days drank less than an 8oz glass of water. I had seen my sister Dr for a second opion and he has 3 other CAH patients so I thought he might be a good place to start. he thought about low potassium but of course since the test came back that I was fine he dissmissed it. He did although help me for a short time. He has now put me on Lamotil for my intestinal trouble which at the time helped my low urine ut put and thirst. Two weeks prior to being hospitlized he put me on this drug and I had felt better than I did in about 10 yrs. I was eating drinking and had plenty of energy.I was at work when the problems started and my Dr told me later that when I doubled my meds is where I went wrong that day. Since i was already low on potassium doubling my meds just took more out of my system and my plans were for when I got home to take another dose and go to sleep. He said this would have been probably fatal to me. When I got to the hospital I had a serum potassium level of 2.6 and normal is 3.6. I was given 6 bags of saline with potasium and one bag of straight potassium in a 3 day period. When i left the hospital I had a serum level of 3.6. I just wished one of the docrors had mentioned that this could be a potential problem awhile back

Danette