@pianogirl1943, I'm not a doctor nor do I play one on tv, but all other things being equal, getting your calcium in your diet can lead to better absorption and more efficient use of it by your body. (Compared to supplements.) There are protein shakes, for example, with 600 and 650 mgs per 11 oz. bottle; your body can't absorb more than 500 or 600 mgs at a time, so depending on what else you eat it might be prudent to drink half a bottle at a time, but that would replace the amount that you get in a supplement, and might be easier to deal with than the horse pills. Or have a huge cheese sandwich for lunch. You still need to take the D3 - my doc says that's even more important than calcium - but they're tiny 🙂 When you find a new doc, see what they say about dietary calcium for you; there's no shortage of literature indicating it's superiority to supplements, but every body is different.