If you have a Vertebroplasty or a Kyphoplasty, you have Osteoporosis! Both procedures are done for painful, fresh Vertebral Compression Fractures (crunches of the spine). If your spine goes crunch...
Fracture Risk! You need to know Your Personal Fracture Risk. That is a lot more complicated than just your BMD or t-score. FRAX is a huge step forward in calculating...
“Drug Holiday”. How does that work? After 5 or more years on Bisphosphonate medication, there is often enough accumulated medication to maintain Bone Mineral Density for 2 or 3 or more years without adding...
I recently noticed that a friend seems to be Shrinking! She is not as tall as she used to be. When I mentioned it, she said that her kids had...
Nurse Practitioners need to know how to Screen for and Prevent Osteoporosis. This past week I taught both the lecture and lab sections at Allen College. The lab covered DXA, VFA,...
You know what a “Heart Attack” is. It can kill or disable you. It is a warning to take your heart health seriously. Recently I heard the term “Bone Attack”....
Secondary Hyperparathyroidism is quite common. I see a new case nearly every week. Secondary Hyperparathyroidism happens when the parathyroid glands are doing their job. If you do not have enough...
When I was in medical school over 40 years ago, we understood that old bones got soft and crumbled. In the spine that crumbling often took years. The vertebrae grew...
I was an orthopedic surgeon for 30 years before I started to treat osteoporosis. I started because most physicians in my area only treated DXA t-scores. I wanted to treat...
Vertebral Compression Fractures represent an area of changing understanding of Osteoporosis. As an orthopaedic surgeon, I understand that a fracture is a fracture whether it occurs all at once or...