My bone density has spontaneously improved - is this odd?

[KatyMac]

I had a DEXA when I had my ovaries out and my density was good

Spine +3, Hip +1.6

And 7 years on I had it retested

Spine +4, Hip +1.6

So I am dairy free, do very little exercise & somewhat overweight - so Im a bit confused

Any ideas?

On the face of it, that does sound very odd. But there are a couple of factors you might not have considered. Excess body weight stresses the spine vertically, potentially stimulating bone maintenance despite limited exercise. While dairy is a common calcium source, stable hip density could indicate that you're getting adequate calcium from other sources - do you drink fortified plant milks? are you getting a lot of vitamin d? The other thing is that DEXA readings can be inflated due to degenerative artifacts eg. spinal osteoarthritis, osteophytes (bone spurs), or aortic calcification. It may be worth requesting a review to rule that out.

Oh i take lots of vit d
But I'm also intolerance to coconut and almond so no other milks

I found it "quite severe degenerative change in my lumbar spine and both jips"

So much for the "everything's fine" xray of my hips a couple of years back "the pain must just be fibromyalgia"

I was dubious about the xray as I'd been diagnosed with some damage in my late teens as I'd been born with bilateral hip dysplasia and worn a harness

I'm not positive about this, but is the score that you get on the DEXA scan actually a ranking comparing your bone density to others of the same age? So it might be possible that yours has just not declined as fast as others - maybe others your age are sort of 'catching up', if you had, say, and earlier menopause or something? I just vaguely remember from a scan I had after a fracture a few years ago that it was all about T-scores, and I am supposed to have a repeated some time in the next year or two - so I've also been wondering if there are things I can do to improve mine, and how it will be measured (i.e., some kind of absolute score so that I can see what's changed, or whether it's just comparative to others my age).

I think there is an absolute score and then there is a comparison score...I think

It depends on whether this is the Z score (compared to other women your age) or T score (compared to a 25yo). Z is more likely to improve but T can also change, either due to being measured on different machines or actually improving bone density (which is hard but possible e.g. see the LIFTMOR trial).

It was

Spine
T=3
Z=3.3
Hips
T=1.4/1.7
Z=1.9/2.2

It's now

Spine
T=4
Z=4.9
Hips
T=1.8/2.4
Z=2.6/3.1