Protect Your Bones

About half of all women of the age of fifty will experience a severe bone breakage due to osteoporosis, the fragile condition of their thin bones will cause them to have a fall and break their hip or wrist or even spine bones. Whenever the body can’t make a new bone or when too much old bone is taken by the body, then osteoporosis is the awful result. Usually when you infuse your body with calcium and phosphate you are giving your body a fighting chance to produce those necessary bones but when your body does not have enough of either, you will suffer and new bones won’t be made and weak brittle ones will be left in their place.

Thus, it will be no surprise when a slight fall or trip lands you to the hospital with a fractured hip. Or, sometimes the bones get so brittle that you will have them break even when no fall or injury occurs! This occurs over a span of many years, but what you do now affects the results that will happen in forty years and the fate that you will enjoy as an old woman. Usually when estrogen drops during menopause, that is the prime time for it to set in and when testosterone drops for men, the same can be said. Men have till age 70 till they are at high risk, but women are already at risk by age 50.

Sometimes when an elderly woman is confined to the bed, she will develop it faster or if she has arthritis, she is a candidate. Also if a woman has no periods for a long while, she might be at greater risk. Other factors include alcohol consumption and a family history of it, as well as hormone treatments for various cancers. A low body weight and too little calcium in the overall dietary intake will contribute as well as if you are a smoker. When you first get it, there are no symptoms at all to show or let you know that you have it, however by the later stages of it, it will show itself in a number of ways. Such as feeling a pain in your bones, a tenderness when you move or are touched, that will tell you you might have it. Also if you experience fractures when barely anything happened, that is also a sign of weak malnourished bones. Also if you begin to shrink and lose about six inches and grow short and small, and experience back pain because your spine bones are fractured or neck pain from the same account, that is also the result of the later stages of the condition.

Usually a doctor will do some bone mineral density testing to determine if you have the condition or some spine CT that can do the same thing. Sometimes you might need a hip x-ray or some other measure. The treatment usually aims to control the pain that is caused by having this as well as stop or slow down the amount of bone loss. Also, medicine will be given to strengthen the bones and life changes will be made to minimize the chance of falling down.