Spinal problems associated with suspected osteoporosis

Dear Gary
I am 71 years of age, female, use to be very activate. 13 years ago I put the 5th Lumbar vertebrae out by 1 cm. Since then it is now out about 1.5 cm

The last 2 years have been tough going with my legs stiffening after walking only 50 to 100cm. I have seen a surgeon in xxxx, and I have been waiting 4 months to have a MRI Scan. It has been frustration times as to know what is going to happen, as I feel that the quality of life has gone a lot.. My doctor put me on Calcium Carbonate tablets which over time I started to feel sick and then I started to vomit, I refused to take any more which made me feel better.

Would a Calcium tablet with Vitamin D help. With what information I have given you would those Vit.D and Calcium tablets help?
"V"
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Gary Moller comments:
Sadly, the state of the health system is such that there is rationing and with that we have age discrimination that will only worsen as the ageing Baby-Boomer Tsunami swamps our health services.

It is obvious that this has been dragging on for years since you first noticed not all was well. You deserve much better service from the health services and I urge you not to settle for any more delays. Go back to your doctor and insist on more urgency. Can you afford private specialist care? Write to your Member of Parliament and to your elected Hospital Board representative and visit them. Be assertive. If that fails to get action, then be loud! Write to the papers and even make a placard and have a vigil outside the hospital entrance. Tell the papers, radio and TV. Your health and quality of life are everything and a proper diagnosis is the first step in the medical process. The longer the delay with these kinds of health issues, the more difficult they are to treat. Act your age - get assertive and be stroppy if that is what it is going to take to get the wheels in motion!

In the meantime you can look at dietary measures to ensure that any suspected osteoporosis does not progress. I am not keen on high dose pharmacy grade calcium products that some doctors insist on dishing out. There is increasing evidence that calcium drives dementia and cardiovascular disease.  It is much better to go for milder and more natural remedies. But you need to be very thorough because what you have described that may be going on with your spine is not nice. Do not compromise by settling with half measures. Here is what I recommend you do from today in terms of diet and supplementation to build and maintain strong bones:

• Have a daily cup or two of nutrient rich beef or lamb bone broth.
• Eat lots of vitamin C rich foods such as Kiwi Fruit and Tamarillos which are currently in season.
• Eat a delicious liver dish twice weekly
• Ensure there is a a little high quality protein in every meal
• Consider starting the day with a nutrient packed Super Smoothie with a fresh raw egg in it as your breakfast
• Eat vegetables like cabbage, broccoli, onions and garlic
• Have about 1,000 mg of natural vitamin C daily more than you get in food
• I strongly recommend daily glucosamine and chondroitin for helping build strong collagen and to help bone healing

If you want more detailed advice, including access to some of the new and exciting practitioner products for reversing osteoporosis, contact me via my website contact links, thanks.

Some daily exercise is very important to stimulate the bone cells that lay down healthy new bone. You could inquire with your nearest ACC office about Tai Chi classes being run in your town. These may be suitable for you. However; as a first step, please have a chat with your General Practitioner about the possibility of getting a referral to an experienced physiotherapist who can assess your current abilities and help you develop an exercise routine that is safe and effective for you.

For information about osteoporosis, get online and search for "Gary Moller osteoporosis) and visit the website of osteoporosis expert, Gillian Sanson, who I believe was raised in South Canterbury (A piece of trivial information).

Please let us know how things go and if there is anything else we can do to help.

Should I be incorporating some sort of weight training into my exercise workouts to help build some muscle?

Hi Gary,

Hope I am doing this right. Would love some advice as I havent a clue what i am doing.I am a 42 year old married, mother of 5. Last September I decided to change my lifestyle considerably as i was 134 kilos and feeling everyone of them. (Although my top weight was 140 kilos 3 years ago).

It is almost my 1 year anniversary of these changes and i am now 72 kilos! Really pleased with myself, and havent been this low since I was a teenager.

Now, I am doing approx. 1 1/2 hours- 2hours exercise each day, not counting work (part-time shelf stacker at the local supermarket). This exercise constitutes walking, biking and an elliptical trainer my brother gave me.

I am loving the changes (and comments), however I have an awful lot of loose skin, not too worried about this as feel it is the price you pay for getting so overweight to begin with. I am wondering whether I should be incorporating some sort of weight training into my schedule to help build some muscle.

My eating is pretty good, not as good as it could be, but compared to what it was, not too bad, I take no supplements at this stage.

Any advice would be magnificent as I am really flying blind here.

Thanking you in anticipation,

"J"
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Gary replies:
Congratulations on your dramatic change in lifestyle and associated weight loss! And my apologies for taking so long to respond to your inquiry.

With regards to the loose skin, it is possible that it will be less obvious with time. Women are a little more prone to wrinkling and loose skin with ageing compared to men. This is because a woman's hormonal makeup makes for less robust collagen which is more liable to damage such as from stretching or excessive sun exposure. There are a number of nutritional strategies that one can use to improve collagen health, including extra vitamin C, regular bone broths (rich in minerals and gelatine), supplementary MSM (methylsulfonylmethane), flax oil, vitamin E and even some glucosamine and chondroitin. I would add lots of bright fruit and berries to the diet. These are all very good for the skin. Then you could add some extra silica to the diet. If you need any supplements like silica or MSM, you can get these from www.myotec.co.nz . Contact me if you need sorting through the confusion of options that I have just listed.

Moving on to your question now:

You should be adding weight training that is additional to the shelf stacking that you do in the supermarket. As one gets older, strong bones are important and the exercise you are doing is wonderful; but only for your hips and lower down (The cross trainer is a qualified exception). You need to add exercise that works the muscles and bones from the low back and upwards. In effect, you are setting out to exercise the muscles that defy the pull of gravity.

There is an added benefit of lifting weights: Packing on a bit of extra muscle helps keep that excess fatt you lost from coming back because healthy muscle burns calories like crazy when working out and even a little while at rest. The other benefit is the muscle will help fill out some of that loose skin such as is commonly seen on the upper arms of women who have lost weight.

You need to be doing some repetitive lifting that takes a weight from ground level to stretch above your head. Pages 111-112 of my book on back pain describes this exercise and how to do it safely. You can add all kinds of other exercises but these are optional. I prefer to use body weight, rather than machines. You can do exercises like kneeling press-ups and even just hanging from an overhead bar and lifting your legs in a reverse sit up. This exercise helps keep you tall and straight while conditioning the abdominals. I must make a You Tube video about this topic soon, so please keep a watch for it.

You do not need any expensive equipment for your weight training. Get a couple of discarded 2-4 liter plastic containers with handles handles from the supermarket and fill with either water or sand.
1 liter water = 1 kg weight.
Choose a weight you can lift about 15 times before losing form, then do 2-4 sets of about 14 repetitions between other exercises. Add a little more weight over the months as you get stronger. You never need more than about 4 kg per arm.

Latest Breaking News about Osteoporosis

Whenever you are addressing a health issue: "Normal" is not necessarily "Healthy". Always find out what is "Optimal" and go for that and settle for nothing less

When interpreting Lab test results for Vitamin D:

Optimal 25-hydroxy vitamin D values are:

* 45-50 ng/ml or 115-128 nmol/l

Normal 25-hydroxy vitamin D lab values are:

* 20-56 ng/ml 50-140 nmol/l

Your vitamin D levels should NEVER be below 32 ng/ml, or the equivalent in nmol/l. Any levels below 20 ng/ml are considered serious defiency states and will increase your risk of breast and prostate cancer, osteoporosis and autoimmune diseases like MS and rheumatoid arthritis - to name a few.
(Reference: Holick MF. Calcium and Vitamin D. Diagnostics and Therapeutics. Clin Lab Med. 2000 Sep;20(3):569-90)


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