I Found I Had Osteoporosis After I Broke My Elbows
As instructed to Erica Rimlinger
I wasn’t taking dangers after I fell. I used to be strolling on a paved path within the park with my grown kids after I simply tripped on seemingly nothing. I lurched ahead, leaving my ft behind me and my higher physique hurtling towards the pavement. As an expert pianist, I assumed I’d educated myself to not use my palms to catch myself throughout a fall, however when the second got here, instincts overcame intentions, and I landed on my palms.
Embarrassed, I obtained up shortly and insisted I used to be high quality. However after just a few steps I started to doubt that. My arms, wrists and palms had been in loads of ache. We rotated and went dwelling.
The subsequent day, my elbows had been bruising, swelling and radiating ache. One elbow felt worse than the opposite. I suspected it was damaged but additionally thought it was unusual that such a brief fall would generate the momentum to interrupt bones.
Since my work requires the usage of my arms and palms, I couldn’t let this harm go unexamined by a healthcare supplier (HCP). I’m a full-time music professor and musician performing each on campus in addition to in skilled venues across the nation. My capacity to play music is my livelihood.
An X-ray confirmed my suspicions: A bone in my elbow was damaged. After my different elbow continued to throb and swell, I had it X-rayed as properly, and there was a damaged bone in that elbow too.
I’d by no means damaged a bone in my life and now out of the blue I had two damaged bones. After some web analysis, I got here throughout a attainable clarification for my sudden fragility: osteoporosis, a illness that weakens your bones. I known as my HCP and requested in the event that they thought a bone density test can be a good suggestion for me. I used to be solely 58 years outdated: Most insurance policy usually received’t pay for bone density scans till age 60, however since I’d had a fracture and my HCP agreed I ought to have the check, it was lined by insurance coverage.
I had two threat elements for osteoporosis earlier than the autumn: I used to be a middle-aged lady with a small physique body. Nonetheless, I didn’t produce other threat elements: Osteoporosis didn’t run in my household, I by no means smoked, I took a every day multivitamin for girls and I exercised repeatedly.
After the bone density scan confirmed I had osteoporosis, I felt frail and weak and nervous about strolling. I’d all the time been a runner, a walker and a hiker. However now I averted these actions. I used to be afraid of falling and breaking different bones.
I began taking a medicine to cut back bone loss. I began swimming as a substitute of strolling. Swimming helped in so some ways. I gained energy, confidence and arm mass. I had all the time practiced yoga however now centered extra effort on constructing stability and energy throughout my follow.
2025
My elbows healed, and I used to be grateful my wrists hadn’t damaged. I might nonetheless play piano. Along with instructing, I’m additionally a church musician. When my bones had been damaged, I missed only one Sunday on the piano. I wasn’t taking part in notably properly the week I returned, and I needed to postpone a recording mission and delay a live performance, however I might play piano, and I used to be grateful for that. I had began to play guitar for a music remedy program, incomes my certification in it simply earlier than my fall, and I needed to relearn that talent after the bones in my elbows healed.
My fall was three years in the past, and my physician ordered a second bone density check just a few months in the past. I used to be amazed to study that the medicine I’d taken had reversed my bone loss. I’m nonetheless in danger for osteoporosis once more sooner or later, however I now have a much less extreme model of it known as osteopenia, which suggests my bone density is decrease than regular however not low sufficient to be osteoporosis. Most individuals discover out they’ve osteopenia earlier than it develops into osteoporosis – like having prediabetes earlier than a diabetes analysis. My diagnostic journey took me from the illness to the warning stage.
I’m sharing my story to assist girls perceive the significance of taking cost of their bone well being. I would like individuals to know that bone well being evolves — and you’ll enhance your bone density with therapy and wholesome life-style modifications.
I intend to maintain my bone well being transferring in the precise route. Along with my medicine, I take vitamin D and calcium dietary supplements and do workouts that construct bone energy. I’m grateful to proceed to play music and benefit from the issues I like, together with mountain climbing, which I’d been avoiding since my fall. On a current go to to my son in Colorado, my husband and I went mountain climbing within the mountains. I used mountain climbing poles for added stability, however I didn’t let concern of falling cease me. Each time these poles hit the bottom, it was music to my ears.
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