Osteoporosis

Osteoporosis

I guess you can say I’m one of the unluckier people in life. Since I’m a male I only had a 1 in 5 chance of getting osteoporosis rather than female’s chance of 1 in 3. Being in my early 70’s my bones have become brittle and fragile from the loss of tissue. Although it may seem like it’s no big deal sometimes I’m scared to even walk because of the fear of fracturing a bone. For the rest of my life I could deal with chronic pain, have long-term disability and possibly even death. When I was younger my bones used to be like steel. My osteoblasts were much faster than my osteoclasts which resulted in more muscle mass. As I aged my osteoblasts were slowing down and eventually my osteoclasts had surpassed the speed my osteoblasts were working at. My bone mass was being taken away faster than being built in simpler terms.

Ever since I got osteoporosis I had to change my lifestyle slightly to make sure I didn’t worsen my condition. Before I had osteoporosis I was a very heavy smoker. Quitting smoking was one of the hardest things to do for me. After being a chain smoker for 17 years it’s difficult trying to quit something cold turkey, (yes, I know smoking is bad for you anyways,) but I had to because smoking increases rates of bone loss and the chance of experiencing a fracture. The same thing could be said with my drinking. With just two drinks it halts bone growth and after a few more it increased my chance for falling. My lifestyle was forever changed after these things even if it was for the better or worse of me.

So as this condition became a part of my life I looked into treatments that could slow down or hopefully stop this horrible disease. In my case, I had a high risk in fracturing one of my bones so I was prescribed medication to slow down the bone loss. In lower risk situations it focuses just on lifestyle changes to get more calcium and vitamin D into their diet with a healthy amount of exercise. Only if I was lucky enough I wouldn’t have to...