My Echolight experience

I believe I have to compare the actual bone density measurements, since the T-scores are based on different technologies. Those show increases as well. Now I'm really curious for my DEXA next month.

Hello @njx58,

I'd like to invite @kirstenlheld, @csday, @robinturkell and @katgob to this discussion as they have either had an echolight scan or have shown interest in learning about your echolight experience.

@njx58, with your next DEXA scan upcoming, are you planning on presenting the Echolight numbers to your provider as well, or will someone else do the comparison for you?

I actually sent him the report, and he was impressed by the gains... but we are both thinking "how accurate is this?" Could my L4 BMD, for example, really jump from .71 to .95 after just eight months on Tymlos? That's 33 percent. It seems unlikely. But maybe the DEXA wasn't accurate?

This is the problem with scans. You can't trust the results 100 percent.

My DEXA is early January, so that's close enough in time for a comparison.

My experience with the Echolight Scan was, so far, a one time experience. What I have been told is that it is another tool like the Dexa scan to track your progress, and that you can't really compare the two exactly because they are different technologies. I may have another Echolight scan done sometime in the next year to see if it shows the same positive trajectory that my Dexa scan has.

Same for me. Had 1 EchoLight so far and results more pleasing than DEXA showed. Just borderline on DEXA for osteopenia/osteoporosis. Only osteopenia on Echo plus good quality. Will repeat both next year. In the meantime I’m lifting heavy weights, jumping, using vibrating plate, using OsteoStrong. No medication. Am hopeful.

I have never heard of this before, however, I am going to recommend this to my doctor when I see him, to see if I can have this type of scan rather than a bone density test. Unfortunately, Reclast is probably not an option again because they believe me to be allergic to it. I really need to find something that can increase my numbers and slow down the hypercalcemia and severe osteoporosis. This sounds like a good option to see a better view of the integrity of the bone.

It's not available everywhere, unfortunately. This discussion earlier this year has a list.
https://www.inspire.com/groups/bone-health-and-osteoporosis/discussion/sites-providing-rems/

Many doctors aren’t receptive to this. Mine isn’t. I went on my own and then shared results.

Where do you live? Maybe I can help you find a place.

@njx58 Glad you started this discussion. I've just had my first Echolight scan also but I got the opposite of what is so commonly reported. My bone density / t-scores were much worse than my DXA scans.
Each vertebrae ranged from .8 to 1.2 t-score points less. So L1 went from -1.4 to a -2.6 t-score. And of course the actual density numbers were much worse also.
Paradoxically my fragility score for my spine was better than my TBS score from my DXA.
My femur neck was also worse but pretty close.

I find it very difficult to know what to think from this one Echolight test. More than one standard deviation off between the Echolight and DXA in my T-score is a lot of deviation.
With the DXAs I have 7 scans over 5-6 years. The scans were consistent overall. My scores didn't stay the same but each DXA showed further loss than the previous one up until I did Evenity and I had two after Evenity and they both were close. I had TBS 3-4 times and those were consistent to and I also had TBS improvement from the Evenity. If I was rich I'd go have another Echolight right away to see if the results of that were consistent.

The only reason for such a variance I can think of is that I have slight to moderate scoliosis. Could scoliosis make my DXA t-scores higher? Echolight claims scoliosis and arthritis do not effect the Echolight reading? But why would my L4 at the base of my spine before the scoliosis curve starts have the same variance as the other 3 vertebrae that are more in the scoliosis curve?

It's quite frustrating. I'll try to research beyond the marketing materials when I have more time. For now I'm going to base my decisions on my DXA scores which I have proven are consistent. I wish an objective third party would do a good comparison of these two approaches. I'm interested to see what else gets posted in this discussion.

@njx58 Just realized my first comment was all about me and not a response to your post. Where were my manners?
Given my own experience and what I've read in the online forums and the marketing type materials I would not, as yet anyway, put much value into comparing the DXA scores with the Echolight scores. Especially with Tymlos in between your last DXA and your Echolight scan.
I think you could get quite good gains with Tymlos but I'd wait to see what the Jan DXA scores are to take that to the bank. I'm not saying DXA is definitely better than Echolight or vice versa but rather that it's a DXA you have as a baseline to see how much Tymlos has helped you.