Today, my long essay on osteoporosis appears in The Guardian. Herewith, unedited, are two of its primary source interviews: Drs. Avrum Bluming & Muriel Babey, along with links to prior interviews.
I take 2000 IUs of Vitamin D3 every day. I just buy the pills in bulk at Costco. I also take a daily probiotic against UTIs. It, along with the vaginal estrogen, seems to be working!
Deborah, you are every woman’s hero! Your dogged pursuit of solutions to our bodies’ challenges brings us information and a huge dose of tears mingled with laughter.
Thank you so much! Wish I didn't have to be. Wish the U.S. practiced preventative medicine. But we don't. We just treat stuff when it's too late to do anything about it.
Thank you so much for making this information so much more understandable! I have been reading about Osteoporosis treatment for years and would give up because of never understanding why you needed a vacation from them and why you had to switch to different ones. I would like to hear how many women with untreated osteoporosis have broken a bone from sneezing - hopefully that was an exaggeration on the drs. part and the number is very small.
Such valuable info, thank you! I'm 67, have osteopenia and metastatic breast cancer, for which I take an estrogen-suppressing drug. I'm very concerned about the potential for broken bones, especially since I've already fallen once this year. Will share with my oncologist and primary care physician.
I'll be interested to hear what they say. Very complicated--but common--to have both breast cancer and osteoporosis. I wish Dr. Babey's lactating mouse hormone could be rushed somehow. Seems like it would really solve this issue of people who can't take estrogen.
Two thousand IUs a day of D3 is not enough. You should be taking at least 5,000 IUs a day. And you also need to be taking K2 with it, as D3 creates a lot of free-floating calcium that needs to be driven into the bones, so as not to settle in soft tissue and create overcalcification. Vitamins D3 and K2 work synergistically.
The DEXA scan is a big scam that was pushed because the drug Fosamax wasn't selling well. Osteopenia is not a disease and should not be treated with a drug. Fosamax is a dangerous drug, with horrendous side effects, including jawbone death, a hugely ironic side effect for a drug pushed to prevent the breakdown of bones. Your bones are supposed to break down and build up on a regular basis. But Fosamax and other similar drugs, which a great many women take, prevent the breakdown of bones, so that your bones become denser, but not stronger, and eventually more prone to fracture, another ironic side effect.
I was taking more, it was too much. 2000 works for my body. I get a lot of K2 through the foods I choose. I don't have osteopenia, I have osteoporosis. And I wrote all about the Fosomax side effects in the linked story as well as in my interview with Dr. Bluming.
This is the kind of article that all women in midlife truly need to read. What you've been through is unimaginable. I found out that one of the local hospitals in my area offers DEXA scans for $50 cash, no insurance or doctors prescription needed. My appt is next week. Thank you for sharing your story.
I live in a midsize city in the South so if it's available here, then hopefully it's available in other places. The scan is offered at the local heart hospital so maybe it's available at other heart hospitals.
Thank you for sharing your important story and work and for your dogged persistence to dig deeper on our health, especially women’s health! I’ve been trying to chase down research, diagnoses, prevention-focused health, wiser treatments and open -eared and -minded doctors for the past 30 years for loved ones and myself.
Curious if I missed your follow-up Dexa scan results? I, too, got an out of left field osteoporosis diagnosis last year and age 53. I’m chalking it up to a perfect storm of small (tall) -boned, thin, menopausal, and coming off of several low exercise, high stress years of caregiving for my nonagenarian mother and ALL hell (i.e. this country’s abysmal "eldercare") that comes with that.
I had been super health-focused since landing in the world of (my partner’s) chronic disease and caregiving at the age of 26. Lots of tweaks and turns as to just what that’s looked like along the way, but this OP bombshell had me revisiting what was needed to address it, while maintaining an otherwise excellent health record. It’s worth mentioning that bc all my labs and exams show excellent health, no problems and without any medications, but here I was with a serious condition that completely blindsided me.
Learning this shocker, I started MHT (lowest dose estrogen patch and progesterone) got more active, added weights, bumped up calcium and protein foods in my ovo-pescatarian diet of whole/real foods adding kukicha tea and continuing my daily Vitamin D3+K. I also use a vibration plate daily and a weighted vest now. Am still working on the stress...
I got a 10-month rescan and my spine has improved and hips are unchanged. So, I’m hopefully moving in a better direction with OP as I hope you are too. Thanks again for putting this condition on women’s radars and showing the way to better, more informed and accountable healthcare for all of us. Dang, shouldn’t Dexa scans be as routine as paps and mammograms for peri/menopause women?!
Thank you for this amazingly thoughtful comment, CJ. Really appreciate it. And I need to get a DEXA at the exact same place I got it before, so I'm still...waiting. Until mid-December. Which is the first appointment I could get back in August. Sigh.
Curious to hear what your physcians consider to be an adequate vitamin D level?
Thank you so much for writing this!
I take 2000 IUs of Vitamin D3 every day. I just buy the pills in bulk at Costco. I also take a daily probiotic against UTIs. It, along with the vaginal estrogen, seems to be working!
Deborah, you are every woman’s hero! Your dogged pursuit of solutions to our bodies’ challenges brings us information and a huge dose of tears mingled with laughter.
Thank you so much! Wish I didn't have to be. Wish the U.S. practiced preventative medicine. But we don't. We just treat stuff when it's too late to do anything about it.
Thank you so much for making this information so much more understandable! I have been reading about Osteoporosis treatment for years and would give up because of never understanding why you needed a vacation from them and why you had to switch to different ones. I would like to hear how many women with untreated osteoporosis have broken a bone from sneezing - hopefully that was an exaggeration on the drs. part and the number is very small.
Not a joke! Apparently it happens often, especially in older women. I’ll ask for stats next time I speak with her.
Such valuable info, thank you! I'm 67, have osteopenia and metastatic breast cancer, for which I take an estrogen-suppressing drug. I'm very concerned about the potential for broken bones, especially since I've already fallen once this year. Will share with my oncologist and primary care physician.
I'll be interested to hear what they say. Very complicated--but common--to have both breast cancer and osteoporosis. I wish Dr. Babey's lactating mouse hormone could be rushed somehow. Seems like it would really solve this issue of people who can't take estrogen.
Deborah,
Two thousand IUs a day of D3 is not enough. You should be taking at least 5,000 IUs a day. And you also need to be taking K2 with it, as D3 creates a lot of free-floating calcium that needs to be driven into the bones, so as not to settle in soft tissue and create overcalcification. Vitamins D3 and K2 work synergistically.
The DEXA scan is a big scam that was pushed because the drug Fosamax wasn't selling well. Osteopenia is not a disease and should not be treated with a drug. Fosamax is a dangerous drug, with horrendous side effects, including jawbone death, a hugely ironic side effect for a drug pushed to prevent the breakdown of bones. Your bones are supposed to break down and build up on a regular basis. But Fosamax and other similar drugs, which a great many women take, prevent the breakdown of bones, so that your bones become denser, but not stronger, and eventually more prone to fracture, another ironic side effect.
I was taking more, it was too much. 2000 works for my body. I get a lot of K2 through the foods I choose. I don't have osteopenia, I have osteoporosis. And I wrote all about the Fosomax side effects in the linked story as well as in my interview with Dr. Bluming.
This is the kind of article that all women in midlife truly need to read. What you've been through is unimaginable. I found out that one of the local hospitals in my area offers DEXA scans for $50 cash, no insurance or doctors prescription needed. My appt is next week. Thank you for sharing your story.
Wow! Where do you live? That’s amazing.
I live in a midsize city in the South so if it's available here, then hopefully it's available in other places. The scan is offered at the local heart hospital so maybe it's available at other heart hospitals.
Thank you for sharing your important story and work and for your dogged persistence to dig deeper on our health, especially women’s health! I’ve been trying to chase down research, diagnoses, prevention-focused health, wiser treatments and open -eared and -minded doctors for the past 30 years for loved ones and myself.
Curious if I missed your follow-up Dexa scan results? I, too, got an out of left field osteoporosis diagnosis last year and age 53. I’m chalking it up to a perfect storm of small (tall) -boned, thin, menopausal, and coming off of several low exercise, high stress years of caregiving for my nonagenarian mother and ALL hell (i.e. this country’s abysmal "eldercare") that comes with that.
I had been super health-focused since landing in the world of (my partner’s) chronic disease and caregiving at the age of 26. Lots of tweaks and turns as to just what that’s looked like along the way, but this OP bombshell had me revisiting what was needed to address it, while maintaining an otherwise excellent health record. It’s worth mentioning that bc all my labs and exams show excellent health, no problems and without any medications, but here I was with a serious condition that completely blindsided me.
Learning this shocker, I started MHT (lowest dose estrogen patch and progesterone) got more active, added weights, bumped up calcium and protein foods in my ovo-pescatarian diet of whole/real foods adding kukicha tea and continuing my daily Vitamin D3+K. I also use a vibration plate daily and a weighted vest now. Am still working on the stress...
I got a 10-month rescan and my spine has improved and hips are unchanged. So, I’m hopefully moving in a better direction with OP as I hope you are too. Thanks again for putting this condition on women’s radars and showing the way to better, more informed and accountable healthcare for all of us. Dang, shouldn’t Dexa scans be as routine as paps and mammograms for peri/menopause women?!
Thank you for this amazingly thoughtful comment, CJ. Really appreciate it. And I need to get a DEXA at the exact same place I got it before, so I'm still...waiting. Until mid-December. Which is the first appointment I could get back in August. Sigh.