Is prescription medicine my only option at my age?

Can weak or ruptured tendons contribute to osteoporosis or does osteoporosis cause tendons to be weak ? I have both and it's very frustrating. And nothing seems to be helping.

joglow, you may have transient osteoporosis of the hip. You might consider having the gold standard for detection--MRI, before joining us in the drug fest.
Fear of fracture had me taking Forteo at your age. If you are truly osteoporotic at -3.9, you can avoid medications but consider how your life might change if you fracture the left hip while trying to restore the bone in a slower fashion.
I saw a chiropractor (once) who had a weight scale for each foot. It was easy to see that my right hip was bearing all the weight. You might engage w physiotherapist who could determine if you have that kind of balance struggle.
I'm having an easy time with Forteo.
Best wishes

Thank you

@joglow
Did you take the fracture test. You can google osteoporosis fracture assessment test and their are a couple. One is by Mayo. Mine in the hip in the next ten years was 4.5% on one 4% on one or it showed 96 green people and 4 red out of a hundred. I actually like those odds considering the side effects of the medication’s. I had prostate surgery and my recurrence percentage in 10 years is far higher.

@joglow, Dropping that drastically in only one isolated spot over two years may indicate a technical error or a localized physical cause.

If the scan was done on a different machine or if the left leg was rotated even slightly differently than two years ago, the computer can accidentally calculate an artificially high or low score.

Sometimes, arthritis or bone spurs in the spine can falsely inflate spinal bone density on a DEXA scan. This can make the spine look stable and osteopenic leaving a correctly measured hip looking like the outlier.

Personally, I'd follow up with the MD and try to verify the accuracy of the scores. I had something similar (hip at -3.5 and on the repeat it was -2.4 and the -3.5 was considered an outlier because it was not in line with the other numbers).

@gently Your phrase about "....(before) joining us in the drug fest" cracked me up. We all can use a laugh, esp when dealing with all of this.