Do petite women get over-diagnosed with osteoporosis?

@gently Thank you very much! I will ask my endocrinologist about this.

My doctor recommended a REMS bone test. It looks at density and quality of bone. Also gives you your fracture risk. It’s relatively new so there may not be one in your area yet, but definitely worth checking out!

Yes functional med doc said something about smaller woman possibly getting misdiagnosed. Yay for me/us if valid info. She of course got info from a study that was conducted.

@gigi4
Hi, l scheduled a REMS for myself for this week. It is $450, no insurance coverage. I wasn’t sure it was worth it because it’s through osetostrong which l am highly suspicious of. Did your endocrinologist suggest it? I am looking for a new endocrinologist. Are you in the tristate area?

Hi, my functional medicine doctor recommended the REMS. Here where I live in Arizona, it is located at Osteostrong. But there’s no requirement to attend or join Osteostrong to get the test. I don’t know what the connection is between the two.

@amyt123 No, i am in California. I have a really good endocrinologist but he is with the VA. I don't know much about REMS but apparently it gives a lot more information on bone strength than a standard DEXA and it is not going to give false low readings for petite women. I understand the being suspicious part, but your health is worth it. Maybe you can negotiate a lower price? It never hurts to ask. But maybe not ask the person who schedules. You might have to ask management.

@amyt123
I think you're right to be suspicious. I had a REMS, I am petite at 5 ft and 117 pounds, it indicated that my bones were in much worse shape (spine -3.5, hips -2.7) than the DEXA indicated (spine -1.8 but endo said to disregard my spine as I have bone spurs and scoliosis, hips -2.3 and stable for several years). Not sure how much training goes into the osetostrong tech doing the test but mine didn't have much.

REMS analyzes density and quality and also gives fracture risk. I’m petite - 5’1” and 105 lbs. You’ll get a print out you can share with your doctor. I found the REMS far more informative. Plus, if you do dexascans, I was told it needs to be done on the same machine as prior dexascans since these machines are made by different manufacturers.
Be sure you ask questions of your doctor and the lab where you get your test done to be sure comparisons of improvement or declining scores is accurate.

I was told by a functional medicine doc that osteostrong can provide the REMS scan, but may not be qualified to interpret them 🤷‍♀️

@hungrybirder

There are some older threads on Osteostrong. You can find them as subheadings under Osteoporosis when you do a search for Osteostrong.