To think osteoporosis is shockingly sidelined by healthcare professionals in the UK

Is there no space in the corner of your living room or kitchen?

We've turned out living room in to a gym.

Actually you can request one and if you fit the nhs criteria you will get one.
It doesn’t need a fracture first.
I requested a dexa scan because I have had periods of prescribed steroids lasting more than 3 months, I am post menopausal and was also prescribed antacids (omeprazole) for many years. All risk factors but the steroids alone would have got me a scan.
Had my scan on friday and awaiting results.

Ok I didn't know that, sorry.

I wish someone would tell my dad. My mum (83) goes to the gym five times a week and she's always trying to get him to go 😅

*osteoperosis

Agree. I never heard the word osterperosis until I started reading the meno boards on here in my early 40s. I'm now 47.

I want a dexa scan but don't want to use the local private hospital as it reminds me of some hideous surgery I had there. Am waiting for the local fancy botox place to start offering them!

I don’t think that’s entirely accurate. I improved my Dexa results, as in my bone density improved with weight bearing excercise and the addition of 10 minutes a day on a vibration plate.
I asked the Dexa machine technician who was a similar age to me , sixties, if she had had herself scanned and she was outraged. ‘Of course not’ she said, ‘my doctor will tell me if I need a scan.’ Dream on lady.
Vibration plates are shipped up to space stations as all astronauts lose bone while in space. You need the ones that do vertical vibrations rather than side to side as that has the better impact on building density. I’ve just bought a new one from Bluefin for £120. It’s fab and helps with my lower back pain too.

It isn’t!

Even very, very elderly people can put on bone and muscle mass.

Young people don't listen though. Or women who've been slim all their lives and have never had to exercise to keep their weight down.

Weight training is not just about looking ripped, it's about being able to carry heavy bags, being able to put your 10kg bag in the overhead locker on the plane and being able to stand up unassisted if you fall over. Once you lose the ability to do these things, it's game over.

@ILoveDuckDuckGo Ididnt know about magnesium vs calcium thing. Thank you.

So to the naysayers, awareness is not enough. More education is needed.

A Dexa Scan found osteopenia and some signs of osteoporosis when I was in my mid-50s. I took biphosphonates for several years and started serious weight training (dumbbells, with Caroline Girvan who is great). I also take fairly large Dosen of vitamin D. A second scan 10 years later shower that most of the damage had been reversed.

We need to be precise and specific when we talk about prevention or even management . It is not just any exercise with dumbbells or a machine in the gym, it is targeted exercises. There is a program called LIFTMOR which has been tested in trials and it is available for free online and this video shows options for all levels of bone strength.

Then supplements. It is not just vitamin D or vitamin D and calcium. It is a combo of vitamin D+ calcium+vitamin K2. And if you take magnesium or a multivitamin which has magnesium, you need to take the calcium+vitD+VitK2 at least 8 hours apart (so one in the morning, the other in the evening) as calcium and magnesium fight for absorption.

You can stop bone loss and even rebuild bone. It is incredible hard work but it can be done.

I did all of those things and still developed osteopenia and had a major fracture.

If you’re like me, and you have osteopenia (which is a precursor), you get your vitamin d levels checked. Mine were fine, but I now take supplements. I do weight training and specific prevention exercises. There are more hard core prescription meds you can get. Some people can reverse it.

I’m not sure that’s fair. Things like a healthy diet and exercise are widely known and discussed but I don’t think there is wider knowledge in the population about bone health, specifically for women and the involvement of the menopause.

I agree. I think we need to educate young women about the importance of maximising their bone density in their 20’s. I lift weights now in my 50’s, but it feels a bit like closing the door after the horse has bolted. I would have started in my teens/20’s had I known, but of course it wasn’t really a thing for women to lift weights in the 80’s.

If you have a bone scan and there's bad news, what can you do with that information?

@CandidOP Yes I have RA too and can't have HRT because of prior breast cancer. Can't have a dexa scan in the public system until I'm 50 🫤 Lot's of severe osteoporosis in my family so I'm very worried. I'm late 40s though so I guess it's not too long until I can get a scan.

Oh wow, I must've been lucky. I've lived in five different London boroughs and I think it was always on the leaflets they gave us about strength training - the importance of bone density and avoiding osteoporosis.

i'm mostly used "fitness first" back in the day, so I should probably give them a shout out for that useful info. I actually don't know if they still exist, but I don't live in London anymore.

I really wish I could get back into the gym because I do not have space for heavy weights at home. I just don't like the environment any more.

I recently asked to see the GP when I saw a photo of me taken from behind showing a hump developing - what it looked like to me anyway. I'm two years post menopause. I turn up to find a nurse practiconer who declined to measure mmy height and took a blood test, which apparently was fine. What do they test for?! I later looked at my records to see I was down 1cm lately...could me too small a margin to be significant of course. But I'm concerned, all my issues in menopause were dismissed really. All my joints hurt. I had a rough time on HRT but my private GP (botox - brow collapsed in peri!) suggested I go back on it, aaaggh.

I’m sorry but even on this thread about osteoporosis a lot of people really don’t seem to know much about it. When I was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis in my early fifties an enlightened GP sent me for a Dexa and I waltzed in as cocky as anything confident I would be fine. I had a very healthy diet had been a regular gym goer and runner since my early twenties. Had a good BMI. Took Vit D and cod liver oil. Never smoked didn’t drink much. Walked miles every week. I was in fact the poster girl for bone health. I already had osteoporosis. I have since discovered that there are three main risk factors. Early menopause ie done and dusted by 50. A small frame. I am 5’3. Having a diagnosis of RA. Tick tick tick. Good diet healthy living and weight bearing exercise are pretty worthless if you have some or all of these risk factors. As I found out. The ONLY way to be sure is a DEXA. Osteoporosis is completely symptomless until you start breaking bones. I firmly believe that any woman with a risk factor should be scanned.

You can still get it even if you do this. Routine scans are offered in other countries, seems like it could be combined with other health scans to head off problems.

I've gone to gyms for years and didn't hear anything about strengthening being important until I was already in my 50s - it was always about losing weight.

But once the dexa shows osteoporosis/
osteopenia it is too late -
you can prevent bone deterioration
you can’t repair it

I had a scan for a health problem and was found to have a fracture I was not aware of - then diagnosed with osteopenia as a result. No idea beforehand. I am now on medications to help with it, but it it were not picked up by accident, I would have no idea and undoubtedly have gone on to develop osteoporosis.

I have no idea why women are not routinely scanned for this past a certain age. There are easy tests which could really help.

One thing about it being a family problem is that I might not have noticed what messages I was getting outside

Obviously, once you join the gym, they tell you all the benefits of weight-bearing exercise but I don't know what happens to people who never joined

I don't want to take HRT either. The women in my family feel much better after menopause (and live too long as well)

I have had a DEXA scan. All was well, but I was on the pill for a long time. They told me to have another one around menopause age but that happens late in my family so I'm not likely to be due that for ages.

Armed with this knowledge, still some of it is luck because dad had more issues than mum. Mum is now 87 and she had a fall and fractured her wrist, but I think that was inevitable due to the way she fell. Dexa scan after that still said everything was fine.

Dad had a fracture which we think happened because he lifted a suitcase that was probably too heavy for him to lift. Or maybe just bad luck or something.