Hi Katnipped: Welcome to the group
I'm glad you asked for a dexa scan that's a really *good* first step. Unfortunately, most people think that osteoporosis and osteopenia is something that doesn't occur until your much older than you, which isn't always the case.
Luckily you've done your reading and have started out well. Your exercise routine sounds great, and you're able to vary the routine which will help a lot. Are you taking any supplements? Like calcium, vit d, magnesium, k, manganese etc, the bone building vitamins? If you don't have any problems with your mineral levels you need to take the RDA of the above to help with bone loss and building.
I understand your reluctance to take fosamax, I took actonel for a little over a year and it didn't help. I didn't get the usual side effects, but it did cause some bone pain and also didn't raise my t-score any.
Since you already have some dental issues you'll want to be careful with those drugs, even though most people with this problem have other risk factors, like cancer where they used the iv form of the drug. Since no one knows for sure how osteonecrosis starts I would steer clear of it *if* you can. But of course this would be your decision. There are many people who take this med without any problems, so it just depends on your pre-existing conditions and metabolism. I understand that you don't want to hasten your tooth loss, but the same goes for your bone loss as well. Fortunately there are other treatments out there to choose from.
If you have your t-score it would help to know where you are on that scale, since mild osteopenia v high would help you to decide which treatment to go with. There are natural alternatives, that I'm not real familiar with, like OTC strontium citrate that you could consider, and I'll let those more familiar with this explain.
If I had known when my osteopenia had started and had treated it, I wouldn't have osteoporosis now. I went through early non-surgical meno, have a strong family history of osteo, and also have back problems like you. I've had many back surgeries that failed due to poor bone strength. I've had rods and screws fail from falling out of porous bone, so I wish there had been treatment for me when this happened. My bone probs started in my late 20's and I'm now 53. My t-score was -3.6 the last time it was checked and I'm on forteo, which I hope is working well. According to my NTx test, my bone is increasing so hopefully my next dexa will be much better.
Below is a good link explaining all the answers to your questions, except which treatment you should use, because that's up to you. Many people with osteopenia do well with the vitamins/exercise alone, but it would depend on your t-score and how close you are to osteoporosis. Osteopenia is a term for bone loss, and osteoporosis is a bone disease. We all have bone loss, at some point, but what we do to prevent it from
getting worse is the key. Again I wish I had known when I was osteopenic, like you, because I believe I could have alter my entire life.
Keep up the exercise and good luck on your decision for treatment.
[url]http://courses.washington.edu/bonephys/opbmd.html#WHO[/url]
This link starts you off at the t-scores, but if you click on the Home page at the bottom after reading the page, it will explain many things about osteopenia, treatment, testing, vitamin intake etc.
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