<p>Very Happy, that is great news. Thanks for sharing it.</p>
<p>“BunsenBurner, my understanding is that stressing the bone, through weight-bearing exercise or lifting weights, is an alternate way to build bone (other than medication). Is that correct?”</p>
<p>Yes, that is the current thinking. Swimmers and water polo players are advised to do dry-land exercises (running, weights, etc.) to build up their bones.</p>
<p>That’s such wonderful news and an amazing achievement, Very Happy; congratulations! I was diagnosed with osteopenia a year or so ago, and take calcium supplements with Vitamin D daily, so I’m hoping that I never get to the point of having osteoporosis or having to try to reverse it. I can’t afford any height loss either. My son claims I’ve shrunk a little bit already, but I don’t believe him!</p>
<p>^^Let’s assume he’s growing!!</p>
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<p>I gained two thirds of an inch after starting daily yoga. I couldn’t believe it! My physician husband says I didn’t really “grow” at my ripe old age, but I say why not? If your brain can regenerate, anything’s possible. I really believe that yoga can counteract shrinkage in your spine, which is where it mostly happens, I bet. Actually, it’s not so much shrinking that happens as settling, like an old building. Yoga trains your spinal muscles to keep you nice and long and upright. Getting back to the OT, I’ve heard it’s very helpful with bone density building too. Most of the standing poses are weight bearing, using your own body.</p>
<p>Great story on NPR last night on this topic. Again the drug companies figuring out ways to over medicate the population. Fear sells. </p>
<p>[How</a> A Bone Disease Grew To Fit The Prescription : NPR](<a href=“http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121609815]How”>How A Bone Disease Grew To Fit The Prescription : NPR)</p>
<p>Yes, Dave, I also heard that piece. It is about ostepenia. It is a fascinating look at how drug companies can (and do) manipulate treatment and help drive up health care costs.</p>
<p>Verrrrrrry interesting.</p>
<p>What we need to do is take 10,000 women with diagnosed osteopenia and separate them into two groups. Treat one group with the meds and the other with a placebo, and see who has the fewer number of fractures and who lives the longest.</p>
<p>Of course, that will take 30 or 40 years, so we probably will never do it.</p>
<p>Interesting article, although it doesn’t represent my experience at all. I was sent to have a bone density scan not simply because I’m a thin woman in her 50’s, but because I’d been taking a cortisone-derived medication for more than a year for Crohn’s Disease, and my doctor was concerned about the fact that loss of bone density is one of its known side-effects. I had an old fashioned bone-density scan of the middle part of my body, not simply a scan on a “peripheral” machine. And when the results indicated osteopenia, all my doctor told me to take was Caltrate with vitamin D, not fosomax or any other prescription drug.</p>
<p>I requested a bone density test in my early 50’s because my mother has osteoporosis. The test indicated I had osteopenia, but all my doctor told me to take was calcium & vitamin D; my doctor actually said I didn’t need a prescription, so I guess she hasn’t been taken in by the drug companies.</p>
<p>I fit the classic stereotype for pre-osteoporosis and my doctor had me do a bone density test. I was also told I had osteopenia and as shellfell and Donna L mentioned above, I was only advised to take the Caltrate with Vitamin D as well.</p>
<p>I don’t know what to think now, but I agree with the article linked above (thanks for that) when it was mentioned that just believing you are susceptible to fracture does change behavior and how you think about it. It certainly did for me.</p>
<p>After reading the NPR article, I plan to re-ask my doctor more details about my test results. I probably just accepted too quickly the diagnosis without understanding where more specifically I am on the continuum mentioned.</p>
<p>Thanks again to everyone for this thread. And congrats to the OP.</p>
<p>If you just have osteopenia, the general recommendation is Calcium + Vitamin D and weight bearing exercises. The recommended amount of calcium is about 1200 mg. If you have osteoporosis, you should add on fosamax, boniva, or actonel. In a worst case scenario, you would have to start calcitonin.</p>
<p>Wow, congrats to you! That’s wonderful news.</p>
<p>That’s great news, congrats veryhappy!</p>
<p>I just want to chime in here because sometimes osteoporosis or osteopenia can be a symptom of parathyroid disease. When a person has a tumor on one of their parathyroid glands, the hormone/endocrine imbalance basically instructs the body to leach calcium out of otherwise healthy bones. If you feel like you’re getting old, forgetful, tired, and also have bone or joint pain, get a bone density test and also get your serum calcium levels checked. I did this, and after several years of feeling yucky finally got a diagnosis that required simple surgery to cure. I can’t believe what a difference it’s made. Now I get a chance to rebuild my bones too, without fighting against this invisible force!</p>
<p>Oooo, good for you, Fauxnom (love the screen name). How nice to finally feel normal again, after years of not feeling that way.</p>
<p>Thanks for the info about the parathyroid,I am bumping this thread cause I had a bone density test yesterday even though I am only 52 and have a regular menstrual cycle. However I suspected something was going on and they found my BMD to be -2.7, which alarms me, because I am fairly active already.( I do landscaping)</p>
<p>My rheumatologist wants me to come back in three months, they have checked my vit D ( I am on supplemental) but I dont think they have checked calcium.</p>
<p>While weight-bearing exercises are essential to bone health, don’t discount the value of yoga and pilates in helping to prevent fractures. A growing theory, which I tend to believe, is that many fractures & other injuries occur even in women with good bone density, because as we age we lose balance. Then we fall, or feel less secure. So we do less, which leads to a greater decrease in balance, and it becomes a vicious cycle.</p>
<p>Yoga and pilates definitely improve the ability to balance, and the ability to feel more sure-footed and secure as we move about, allowing more movement, more muscle mass and fewer falls.</p>
<p>(Yes, I know that sometimes in women with osteoporosis, a fall can actually be caused by a bone breaking, rather than the other way around. I’m talking more about women with less advanced osteoporosis, osteopenia or even healthy bones.)</p>
<p>I fall all the time- seriously, I am forever stepping on my shoelaces ( I actually untie them by stepping on my own feet),I have poor binocular vision so I have hard time seeing where steps and things are, plus I am often on uneven ground- last Friday for example I was part of a monitoring group tracking wildlife as part of the I-90 bridges project- on snowshoes in the Cascade foothills. Needless to say we weren’t on a trail and the ground is extremely uneven- plus it was icy.</p>
<p>We found cougar tracks which was very exciting & I found some myself when we were trying to see which way it went. ( we also found bear, coyote and snowshoe hare- but the cougar for our purposes was the most important)</p>
<p>Congratulations,</p>
<p>I’ve lost track but several years ago I had first Dexa scan. I was encouraged to take Calcium and vit D. Following year, another scan…I was told to cont Calcium but never told that I had become “worse”. Following year, to my horror, I discovered I should have been prescribed/offered option of medication previous year. I had switched back to nurse practitioner in same office. I followed my instincts about that particular physician, wonder where I would be if I had not. Two years of Boniva and I have improved to better than first scan. For me, it worked.</p>
<p>Congrats!
I do not have it, but I have been doing weights and walking / rollerbalding 1 hour every day for past 25 years. I did not have any tests, I just measure my heights. I will not have tests because I would not take pills anyway and I will continue exercising for the rest of my life, so I do not see any point in testing in my case. Everybody in my family is dying of diabetese, so we do not know if they had osteoporosis or not, simply is not relevant in our case.</p>