@windyshores , I am not pro-doctor for a lot of reasons. I had a wonderful doctor when I was younger. He was a DO and saved my life. But we moved out of state and the doctors where I live now are not the same.

The only reason I was even diagnosed with osteoporosis was because my sister in law told me I needed a DEXA scan after I fell off my bike and broke my collarbone 4 years ago. I was 69 at the time and had been seeing that PCP for 15 years and she never once suggested I needed a DEXA scan. I didn't even know what a Dexa scan was!

I was a ballet dancer and in great shape up until I went into menopause and things started falling apart. When I found out I had osteoporosis she suggested Fosamax, even though I had to tell her I shouldn't take it because I have LPR and chronic gastritis. So I thought healthy food and exercise was all I needed and didn't even know I had fractured a vertebrae because this same doctor refused to order any Xrays, or anything diagnostic in spite of telling her for 3 years that I had severe back pain. I didn't find out about the old fracture until last year when I had an X-ray for something else and that revealed it. Then this new fracture happened after I had been dragging trees from the back to the front of my house after hurricane Milton. I had also been carrying my 2 year old 35 pound grandson around for the week before that because he had croup and just wanted to be held, and I was his sitter that week. Then I caught the cough he had, and was coughing my lungs out while I cleaned up the yard after the hurricane.

So it was a bad confluence of events that probably led to this recent fracture, which caused me to see a pain specialist who finally ordered an MRI that showed the fracture.

Yes, we have to be our own advocates. Doctors killed my father who went into a hospital for a simple stent and never came out again because of their butchering. They went into his lung, he was bleeding internally and his heart stopped.

So when I find out my endocrinologist has taken literally thousands of dollars over the years for prescribing Osteoporosis drugs, I do hesitate to trust him. Especially when he told me to take Tymlos and I have had radiation.

I am probably going to take it anyway, but I'm very, very frightened of the side effects with my history of drug sensitivity, low blood pressure (52/88) and after reading the reviews for that drug on drugs.com.

I care about my body, which is why I am trying to be cautious. I do feel that if the PCP had told me about Dexa scans when I was 55 instead of 69, I wouldn't be in the pickle I am in now.