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I posted here some months ago about first exhibiting symptoms of Raynaud's after taking Lisinopril for high blood pressure. My doctor took me off the Lisinopril and prescribed 10mg of Amlodipine and referred me to a rheumatologist who I met with today.

The rheumatologist expressed concern that even though the attacks have decreased in frequency since taking the Amlodipine, my hands and feet are now turning bright red when I'm warm, and then without warning my fingers turn white and the entire attack takes about 15 minutes to subside. He said it's unusual and ordered about 10 different lab tests, I don't even remember them all, one of them was double strand dna test. I previously tested ANA negative and my thyroid is ok.

What scares me is that he said while the possibility is remote, this could be related to an undetected malignancy, so he is scheduling a chest x-ray and pelvic scan and then possibly more scans after that. I hadn't even considered that to be a possibility and I guess at this point all I can do is hope that he is wrong, have any of you heard of that before?

2sleepy, thanks for the update. Please let us know what the rheumatologist says after your test results are back. I have never heard of the symptoms you describe being related to a malignancy. It sounds like your doctor is being very thorough.

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Secondary Raynaud's with a connective tissue disease

All the symptoms you mention are usual for raynauds... I have primary but they're the same for both.

Won't hurt to get an x-ray done but I wouldn't worry about it if I were you... Like Sarah says he's just being very thorough.

Hope all goes well.

I had a bunch of tests done, all were negative and I also have no indicators for any auto-immune disorder. The only 'remarkable' finding was that my Vitamin D level was 9 which is really low. As I said before, I got some relief from symptoms after being prescribed Amlodipine, but it made my ankles swell terribly so the Rheumatologist changed it to Diltiazem. Since I've been taking Diltiazem I have not had one Raynaud's attack, but that was also coincidental to my Vitamin D level going up after I started taking huge (prescribed) doses of Vitamin D, so might there be some relationship between Raynaud's and a severely low Vitamin D level? The Doctor said he had never heard of it, but that it's only been in the past few years that they have discovered how many bodily functions are controlled by Vitamin D so he didn't entirely dismiss the possibility.

In any case, I won't argue with success. It's very nice to be able to pick up a garden hose or get something out of the freezer without having an attack.