Severe symptoms, blood tests and a key PET scan lead to diagnosis.
A 26-year-old man with no prior medical symptoms was having trouble walking. He had pain and weakness throughout his body that was getting worse. He’d been diagnosed with a degenerative disk, a hip fracture and psoriatic arthritis, but none of the recommended therapies were working.
“He was a young, otherwise healthy man who had become progressively and rapidly disabled. His degree of disability was profound for somebody of his age,” said Kathryn Dahir, M.D., an endocrinologist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
By the time Dahir saw the patient, he had fallen so many times that he had fractures in his ribs, ankles and femur. He couldn’t walk unassisted or get up on the exam table by himself. Dahir, a recognized expert in bone disease, immediately began diagnostics with one condition in mind: osteomalacia.
