Physical Therapy

I had my first visit with my new Physical Therapist today. She was awesome! How lucky can I be? We sat and talked and went over my health history. We talked about osteoporosis and about exercise.

Then I learned a number of very simple exercises that will eventually be part of an exercise "routine" of sorts. The exercises take moves from Pilates and breathing from yoga to create a workout that is safe and affective for someone with osteoporosis or osteopenia. The routine will loosen areas where my muscles are tight, and tighten areas that are not.....all in an effort to get all of my muscles working equally no matter what I am doing. I will be seeing her once a week for now so she can watch my progress and add new exercises each week. She might even put me on some of the pilates equipment at some point. That would be cool.

It was a wonderful visit with lots of education. The PT is about my age and she has osteopenia. This is a physical fitness expert....and she has bone loss. It just goes to show you that it can happen to anyone. It isn't a problem for only tall, thin women, or older women, or people that don't get enough calcium, or people that don't exercise.....it happens to men and women, people that are young and people that are older, people that take calcium and those that don't, active people and couch potatoes....it doesn't matter....anyone can suffer bone loss. It has more to do with how your body is functioning and how it is or isn't absorbing calcium.

So now I have all of the parts of my program and I am on my way. I will be eating the right foods, taking the supplements my body needs and exercising safely and in a way that will help my bones. I will also be going for a bone density test on Monday. That way I will know what my scores are right now as I start my bone building program.

Thanks so much for all of your wonderful and supportive comments. I'll let you know my test results when I get them....but that's it for the osteo talk for a while. Make it a great day and do something really, really nice for yourself today!

Building Bone 101

I promised you some information from the book I'm reading so I will start today. I definitely can't fit it all in one post, but this will be a start.

The book I'm reading, Building Bone Vitality, states that, "Bone contains three calcium compounds: calcium carbonate, phosphate, and hydroxide. When the blood's pH falls below normal, the body must restore it as quickly as possible. It does this by pulling calcium compounds into the blood to neutralize excess acids. The body obtains these acid-neutralizing calcium compounds from the reservoir that contains 99 percent of the body's calcium store....bone."

That paragraph is basically what the entire book is about. It tells you ways to keep that "robbing of the bone" from happening. pH stands for "potential of hydrogen". Basically it means how acid or alkaline the blood is. Our bodies are pretty picky and when something isn't quite right, our bodies will try to find a way to repair it....at all cost.

We all know that fruits and vegetables should comprise a large part of our daily diet, but do they? I don't know about your house, but they don't in my house. I was also under the assumption that protein is the key to good health. Most people get their protein from meat. I happen to be a vegetarian so I turned to dairy. I thought I was doing great things for my bones. I wasn't.

I am not a very science minded person, but I do understand this. Most foods contain protein and protein introduces amino acids into the bloodstream, which in turn increases it's acidity and in turn the acidity of urine. My body will do what it needs to do to balance my blood...and in order to do that, it will pull calcium out of my bone.

Thinking I was helping my bones, I kept upping the amount of calcium I was consuming by way of food and supplements. I was consuming as much dairy as I could because I thought I needed that protein. For the past seven years I have eaten 10 hard boiled egg whites per week, about 2-3 egg yolks plus whole eggs on Friday and more if we made them for breakfast on the weekends. What I wasn't doing was upping my consumption of fruits and vegetables to provide the alkaline to keep things in balance.

The book suggests lots of fruits and vegetables, some nuts and legumes, modest amounts of bread, pasta and cereal and not much if any meat, poultry, fish, dairy and eggs. I can do that....I might not love it....but I can do it.

I already figured out that a Starbucks Chai with soy milk would be okay and that instead of an egg and cheese croissant, I can get the egg and cheese on a wheat bagel and have it with some fruit!

Did you know that Vitamin D increases the body's ability to absorb calcium. I didn't. Guess who was Vitamin D deficient? Yep. Me. I had Melanoma in 1998 and for many years didn't allow the sun to come anywhere near me. We need sun. We need 15-20 minutes on our upper bodies each and every day! I got none for years. I started on Vitamin D supplements and it is finally back to normal.

What about exercise? Well, everything I have looked at says 30-60 minutes of walking per day....every day. That is crucial. I will be getting a treadmill today.

The book did say that the Osteoporosis drugs do work reasonably well, but they are not a cure. The drug companies always exaggerate the effectiveness of their products and the advertising makes them all seem so wonderful. I'm just not ready to go that route yet. I may have to some day....but not today.

I will continue to read and learn about my disease and treatment options. I will share anything I find that sounds worthwhile.

I am headed to the grocery store right now. You will find me in the produce aisle! Make it an awesome day today and hey....do something nice for yourself today. I plan to!