You bring up an interesting question, @windyshores. We are encouraged to find the root cause of the problem, and that makes sense to me when someone has a condition such as hyperparathyroidism - or maybe someone took chemo or was on corticossteroid for a long time. I suspect I have it because of menopause and the havoc that can cause. I was diagnosed with a blood clot in college (not sure how accurate that was) so HRT was not an option for me. Menopause can't be "fixed" so what is there to do, really? It seems like the choice for us is meds or no meds depending on the T score and fractures (or not). Am I missing anything there?

Also, do you know why they use the T score as a reference point vs. the Z score which compares us with similarly aged peers instead of 30 year olds?

Thanks!

@babs10 and @lynn59 I missed the good discussion this morning. I have to agree with windyshore: we have to remember K Mccormick is a man. He did forteo then follwed by ~1 year fosamax then no pharmaceuticals. This is not likely to be reproducible by an average menopausal woman. If we search online and compare the bone loss between men and women, we'd see a stark difference in terms of the rate of the loss as well as the onset of loss as we age.

Aside from secondary etiology (certain disease states, certain drug-induced as listed by windyshores), most women with osteoporosis got it due to the drop in estrogen levels during menopause unfortunately. One can get a battery of tests to rule out many secondary causes. But on average, the culprit is likely estrogen. Once a while we hear people improve to osteopenia range without meds, but those are far and in between. I wish I could be one of them countless time but then I figured it's not likely, for me at least.

Not trying to be negative. Just a word of caution maybe. Let's keep vigilant, watch out for our bones. Best luck to everyone on this journey.

Agree re not using McCormick as model for post menopause female.