What they never told me about dexascans

yes, congratulations!!!

@crs1950 You can also get blood tests to see the rate of bone breakdown and buildup, P1NP and CTX. That should be covered by Medicare and can be done sooner than one year to see if the med is having an effect.

@willowmena I have considered switching docs...and may still might. My doctor is fine; problem is I feel like I do not get all the information; and honestly, I don't even know what questions to ask until after the once-a-year appointment; osteo is such a vague disease. Vague treatments, testing, supplements, nutrition, exercise - advice/protocol/different meds seem to be all over the map. Been trying to find a true osteoporosis center but it seems to be thus far an "add-on" disease to endocrinology, rheumatology (mainly). University of Chicago has a center; as does Cleveland Clinic I believe.

@baguette Why is this not a standard set of tests for anyone dealing with osteoporosis? My doctor's never even mentioned something like this, yet after doing some reading it sounds like the results of these tests would provide valuable information.

@jozer your experience has been similar to mine. Cannot seem to get the full picture from anyone doctor. I guess they are all spread to thin these days but my endocrinologist who has primarily been my treatment doctor for thyroid issues is also now my Osteo doctor and she really offers very little information. In fact, I had to tell her what medication I thought would be best and she then sent in the Tymlos prescription. She never spoke to me in detail about the pros and cons of all of the available meds. And I always consider her a very detailed oriented doctor. The rheumatologist I consulted on one occasion was completely useless, the elderly rheumatologist, who I also consulted with initially, having used him for issues unrelated to OP, at least gave me a list of all of the available meds, but never spoke to me about the pros and cons. In fact, I can’t recall any Doctor Who spoke to me about the pros and cons. My GP was the least useful. I prodded her for a list of the medication‘s, but she had absolutely nothing to say about any of them. Merely asking me if I wanted to start treatment without even discussing the potential treatments. I passed on her, of course. From everything I read on these posts, we have all had to, to some degree become our own diagnosticians. Imagine if we didn’t have the Internet for research and yet there’s so much conflicting information that one really doesn’t know what to believe or expect.

@joegor Great question. I don't have an answer. I had to read a book on bone health to find out about the markers. The book was written by a chiropractor, not a doctor! Maybe most primary care doctors don't know. You can probably find out more by googling Keith McCormick DC and watching some interviews with him. Or buy his book. I have his original book, and then the new one. The latter is much denser, written for professionals and lay people. The original is probably good enough, written just for the general public. I don't remember there being a lot of new details in the second book that a lay person would recognize. When I had a DEXA scan neither the radiologist nor my PCP recognized that there was something wrong with the test. Based on the test result the PCP was going to put me on a heavy duty drug. Fortunately there is an orthopedist three hours from me with a REMS ultrasound machine and he looked at the DEXA scan itself and said I wasn't positioned properly, the results were inaccurate. I kinda suspected that because reading McCormick's book he talked about if the differential between the highest and lowest score was more than whatever the value is (I forgot) then that indicates the scan is inaccurate. One of the reasons I went for the REMS, which of course my PCP had never heard of. It's like anything else, you really have to immerse yourself in the medical issue because you can't rely on the doctors. Same thing happened to me with GERD. Anyway, it's great to get a baseline of P1NP and CTX before taking a drug. It's still helpful if you can't get the baseline. Oh my you got me started on this topic!

@I do not believe they are accurate at all , I believe they know this as well