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Osteopenia Supplements that work?

Prostate Cancer | Last Active: Sep 25 12:39pm | Replies (24)

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I am a retired orthopaedic surgeon who also is dealing with residual/recurrent/ongoing prostate cancer. The main things to do for osteopenia at this point are: 1) check your Vit D blood level. A surprising number of random tests show low or borderline low Vitamin D levels. 2) Take extra calcium daily. I use TUMS and take 2000-3000 mg a day. The literature varies a lot on how much to take but if you don't have a calcium problem such as calcific kidney stones, there is no danger from taking that much. 3) Make sure you put daily stress on your bones. Walking is good for the lower extremities. Pushups are good for upper extremities. If you cannot do real pushups, you can do "baby pushups" on your knees instead of on your toes. You can also work out on various machines in gyms and suit those to your abilities but do it regularly. Also stress your spine with exercises such as sit-ups, crunches, etc. Should your osteoporosis progress to the point that you experience fractures, there are drugs to reportedly increase bone mass but they work very slowly on bone mass even though the fracture rates are reported to decrease more rapidly. Best to do the 3 things above to avoid problems.

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Replies to "I am a retired orthopaedic surgeon who also is dealing with residual/recurrent/ongoing prostate cancer. The main..."

@tedbeemer
You really should be taking calcium citrate instead of Tums which contains calcium carbonate. It is better absorbed on an empty stomach and has fewer conflicts with other drugs.

Constipation is one of the most common side effects of calcium-based antacids like Tums

I have a pharmacist call me every six months to go over my drugs. The first thing they told me, years ago, was to stop taking calcium carbonate and start taking calcium citrate..

Costco has it with magnesium and vitamin D. I have to take 500 mg three times a day in order to keep my calcium in the normal level. Most people only need to take it twice a day.