Stay in the Game: Betty’s Road Back from Osteoporosis

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Hi everyone, I’m Dr.
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Rita Roy, CEO of the National Spine Health Foundation and host of the Get Back to It podcast.
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Here we share real stories of healing and recovery from people who’ve overcome spine problems and returned to the lives they love.
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These success stories are powerful, inspiring, and sometimes unbelievable.
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Let’s get back to it.
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Hello, Betty.
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I am so delighted to be talking with you today.
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Thank you for joining us to share your story and your history with us.
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And thank you, Dr.
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Roy.
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As we know, we met at the club here doing a Monday night drills.
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I’m now 77.
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And the drills were good for me because I can kind of back off when I want to.
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And I am originally from New England.
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My husband and I joined this club here when we were 36.
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Our kids both have two sons.
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They both grew up here, played tennis.
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I used to make them play tennis with me.
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And now they’re golfers.
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So anyway, Dr.
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Mazahari detected that I had a L1 spine.
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A fracture.
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Did you have symptoms?
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Is that why you went to see the doctor?
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Yes, I was like in bed and all of a sudden it was like big cramps and I knew something was wrong.
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And so we were just going out to Texas at that point.
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It was right before Thanksgiving.
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And so I went to see his assistant.
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And he’s a spine doctor.
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He is a spine doctor in Reston.
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And
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They took an X-ray at the time.
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He eventually had an MRI done, just to confirm it, but they gave me muscle relaxants, and he told me to stay away from tennis and everything except walking for quite some time, which I did.
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And it healed up, so I’m back.
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Yeah.
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So, Betty, many years ago, you were diagnosed with osteoporosis, and you were taking a medication.
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Tell us about that incident.
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How long ago was that?
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It’s kind of an ongoing.
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When I went through menopause, of course, at that time, everybody was taking the hormone replacement.
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And I took Boniva at the time, but then got away from it for whatever reason.
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And now I’m taking the once a month shot
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And I go locally to the doctor’s office and they give me the injection.
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I think that lasts for a year and then you switch to something else.
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So I’m determined just to save my bones.
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And so 87, I’ll still be playing tennis over here.
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In 10 years from now, Betty, we’ll be on the court together in 10 years.
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I’ll be the oldest living tennis player at River Bend.
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All right.
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I love that.
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So in the Boniva years, did you have a fracture in your body back then?
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I did.
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I happened to fracture both feet different times.
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Okay.
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I had a talonavicular fracture on my left foot that involved surgery and I was in a cast for six months.
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So that was pretty bad.
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Yeah.
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And then the other one was a fifth metatarsal.
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It started off as a stress fracture and I just kind of finished it.
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So.
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Did you go on the Boniva after those fractures or?
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It was before.
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Okay.
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So that made me question
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the Boniva.
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And then I kind of got away from it and all of a sudden I turned 70 and 75.
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And when you say you got away from the Boniva, you just along the way just stopped taking it.
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Did you discuss an osteoporosis diagnosis with your primary care doctor?
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At one point I did and she referred me to this arthritis and rheumatologist, which is where I’m going right now.
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Yeah.
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So Betty, thank you for sharing
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that history of your journey with your bone health and various fractures.
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I want to talk a little bit about your family history.
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Yes, my mother, who passed away at the age of 78 of total different disease, had osteoporosis to a point where her back is curved up.
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Sisters never had it.
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Unfortunately, sisters didn’t move long enough to get it.
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And I think it is mostly a female disease, although I know men can get it.
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Never heard about it within the family.
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Yeah.
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Well, in that family history of your mom having osteoporosis is something that’s really important for us to check our brain quality because it runs in families.
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So if your mom had it, there’s a very high likelihood that you will have it as well.
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And you told me that you’ve had some phone testing done and had a DEXA scan.
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I’ve had several DEXA scans.
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I get one every two years.
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And the most recent one was about a month ago.
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And it still showed osteopenia.
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But maybe the levels were close to the osteoporosis in view of the fact that I had the fracture.
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Yeah.
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And so you are aware now that
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If you have a fracture, a low, what we call a low energy fracture, so a vertebral compression fracture, something that’s not trauma with a car accident, but a low energy fracture, like a vertebral fracture, that is by definition osteoporosis, regardless of what the DEXA scan is showing, right?
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So I’m very, very careful about every move that I make.
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And if I’m playing tennis and I get tired, I take a break.
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And the walking I’m still doing.
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And as far as the pickleball, that is a whole different game.
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And that’s quicker, a little faster.
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But I’m going to do it as long as I can.
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Yeah, we’re going to get you staying in the game, right?
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That’s staying in the game.
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Stay in the game.
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So Betty, on your osteoporosis journey, just going to recap here.
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So
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In your 50s, post-menopause, you had two foot fractures.
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You were on Boneiva.
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Questioned whether or not it was really working.
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So you discontinued taking that, continued with calcium supplementation, which is a great idea.
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But then the years roll by and you’re not feeling like there’s anything necessarily going on in your life.
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Right, and as far as diet is concerned, I know that I’ve always been very strict
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about getting the nutrients through diet.
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I eat a yogurt every day.
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I don’t drink a lot of milk, but I do get the yogurt in.
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So I have always been aware of food and nutrients.
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And so over those years, from say 55 to 75, were you monitoring your osteoporosis in your body or not really?
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I was getting the DEXA scan every two years, which Medicare pretty much recommends.
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And every year they would come back with osteopenia.
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And once I had the fracture, I didn’t, I think the osteopenia was maybe higher than, or lower, whatever it is, than I suspected.
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And so with that diagnosis, the back pain, the vertebral fracture, what were some of the treatment options that the spine surgeon talked about with you?
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Well, the main thing was staying away from tennis.
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Okay.
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Yeah.
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And he said, you can walk all you want, but just be very careful.
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And I am very careful of steps and
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We just moved into the condo, so I don’t have the big stairway.
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It’s a deal look in the house anymore, which I kind of think was good.
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The stairs give strength to the legs.
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The step-ups that you can do with that.
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Yeah.
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There are ways to get that into you.
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Yeah, and I keep saying I’m going to take the stairs and do the six floors, but it hasn’t happened.
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It hasn’t happened now.
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I was busy doing something to get home.
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Right.
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And did he offer you any other treatment options or did he talk about some other ways that the vertebral compression fracture might be treated?
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Well, he did mention the cement injection, but it never got to that point because by the time I came back to him, it was healed and you could clearly see in the x-ray, I could see it with my untrained eye that it was healed.
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That’s great.
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Yep.
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When you first were diagnosed with a vertebral compression fracture and you went to your primary care doctor, what did that primary care doctor tell you to do?
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To go and see the orthopedic spine guy, Duck and Mizahari.
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Yeah.
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And did she, was it a she?
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Yeah, it was a she.
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So your primary care doctor, did she
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suggest any medicines or any supplements or what did she talk about?
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No, she just said, get to the orthopedic guy now.
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and deal with it, which I did immediately.
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Yeah.
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Did she talk about calcium and vitamin D with you or that wasn’t?
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No, but Dr.
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Muzahari did, after it was all over and it looked like it was healed, he said, you need to go back to the primary care and find out what you need to do in the way of
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getting on some type of a program.
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Treatment.
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Yeah.
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And that’s when she recommended the rheumatologist and the arthritis person.
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Yeah.
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So then you went back to your primary care doctor, told her my vert fracture is healed.
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What do I do now?
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And she said, I’m going to write you a referral, dear rheumatology.
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Exactly.
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And then I went and I’ve had one shot so far, got another one next week.
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and hopefully in a year it’ll give me some solid bones.
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Yeah.
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And so did the rheumatologist talk about different treatment options or was it really recommended that you start this Evenity medication?
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Were there choices to be made?
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There weren’t really a lot of choices.
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She did say after a year they
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They start doing something different.
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Right, they switch to a different medicine.
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Yeah, I’m not sure what that is.
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Well, the way that Evevity works, it’s a very modern, excellent medicine, but it stops working after a year.
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So then you switch to a different.
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Yeah, so that’s what I will do after a year.
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Yeah.
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Did the rheumatologist talk with you about osteoporosis being a chronic condition for you?
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That would be something you’d have to…
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Well, she didn’t really discuss that.
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But I know from experience and from meeting you that it is something that it’s age-related in my case, certainly.
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And it’s something that doesn’t go away.
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Right.
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It doesn’t just go away.
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And, you know, it’s interesting because we do think of osteoporosis as being an older person’s disease, but it’s actually a disease that starts much earlier in life, but shows up later.
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So the menopause, of course, which that was about 53, that kind of kicks it all into play.
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That’s right, because the estrogen protective effects for your bone drop off.
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And so you see this dropping off of bone quality over time.
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Betty, are you continuing with your passium supplementation or are you focusing on your diet?
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I am.
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Well, I am continuing with the calcium.
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I’ve got these little chewables that are nice.
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And actually they are tasty.
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And so I do that.
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And yeah, I swipe the yogurt every day.
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I think one of the great things you’ve done for yourself over all these years is stay active.
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And that has been amazing and has helped your bone quality.
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And I think that is the key.
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I also, when I can, do little weights around the house.
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The condo has a weight room and a swimming pool.
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Wow.
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And of course we have a facility here, state-of-the-art.
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And I’m going to start next week.
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I’m doing this little cardio swim thing at the club.
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at the condo.
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Nice.
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Yeah, that’s great to be in water.
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They use those Styrofoam dumbbells.
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Yeah, so I’ll just keep moving until I stop.
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Yeah, well, hopefully that’ll be a long time by now, because I got to see you on Monday nights out on the courts.
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That’s right.
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I’ll be back.
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Just a couple other points, Betty, to talk about.
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You’d mentioned seeing a hip doctor.
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Let’s talk about that discussion.
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Yeah, I have hip bursitis, which kind of came out of nowhere, sure.
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No idea what I did.
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So every three months I go in for a cortisone shot, and he hits both hips, and it’s great for about 3 months.
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And what did he tell you when you told him that you had a vertebral fracture?
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He said you’re already osteoporotic, thoratic.
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Yes.
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Because if you’ve got the bone fracture, that pretty much says it all.
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Yeah.
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And I think that what’s, I sort of put a silver lining on these things, right?
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The vertebral compression fracture is generally a less severe fracture than like a hick
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pelvic or femur fracture?
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Yeah.
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And so, yeah.
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And so a vertebral compression fracture is often a warning sign to you that something more dangerous or more catastrophic can happen if the osteoposis isn’t treated.
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So I put you in the very lucky camp that you had that small vertebral section.
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Yeah, I know.
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And my husband’s had a hip replacement and two knees.
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That journey, yes.
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And that was not an easy thing for a big guy.
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And oftentimes the joint replacements are for like arthritis or arthritic changes.
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But when it’s a fracture and a fracture that’s getting repaired, that is a much more challenging surgery and a much more challenging recovery journey.
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So we want to
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do everything we can to prevent what we call a catastrophic fracture like this.
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Right.
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I want to fall down in the parking lot.
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Right.
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And if you fall, you want to be able to fall and not fracture.
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Right.
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I mean, that’s the thing.
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So I think a lot of people don’t realize that bone is a living, dynamic organ in our bodies.
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We think about skeletons like plastic structures at Halloween, right?
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That they’re just these solid things that don’t change.
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But bone is a living, breathing, dynamic tissue organ in our body.
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Like skin?
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It’s like skin.
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And when you cut yourself and it heals, there’s a power of your skin
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that takes over and rushes blood to it and heals it.
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And so our bones are constantly, we’re constantly creating bone and using bone because bone is a repository for calcium in our bodies.
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And calcium is required for the heart to work, for our brains to work, for skeletal muscle to work.
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So we need calcium.
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And if we don’t get enough calcium in our diet,
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the body is going to go to its calcium bank, which are your bones.
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And so, that is why we have this dynamism happening in our bones all the time.
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And when that balance is thrown off, then you have osteoporosis.
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And so it’s something that we like to educate people about because a lot of women and men don’t realize that bone is dynamic.
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The other thing that we tell people, we’re telling our daughters and mothers of young girls that you build the maximum amount of bone that you’re ever going to have by the time you’re in your late 20s or 30 years old.
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So you’ve got to take care of your bones as you’re growing up so that you hit 30 and you’ve got a stronger skeleton.
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And I take one of those gummies every day.
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Yeah, that’s great.
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That’s great.
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That’s great.
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Yeah.
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So bone health is a lifelong commitment.
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So, you know, we’ve got to think about it for our kids.
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We’ve got to think about it for ourselves as we get into midlife.
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We’ve got to think about what the hormone changes are doing for our bodies and just to stay in motion.
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Stay in the game.
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So, Betty, you’re an inspiration.
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Why, thank you, God Ferrari.
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Thank you for sharing your story with us.
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And you are also an inspiration to me.
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All you do with the Spine Foundation.
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I think it’s obviously very helpful to the rest of the world.
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And you travel every place and tell your story, which is the purpose of the foundation, what I can gather.
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So keep promoting it for all of us.
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Betty, we cannot do our work without people like you joining us to share their stories, to give other people hope and inspiration as well.
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If you had any closing words of wisdom or pearls of wisdom to share with people who are listening to us, what would you say?
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I would say I’m very fortunate that I met Dr.
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Roy and that I became aware of the National Spine Foundation and all of the
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the places that you travel to present to the world what osteoporosis is all about and what the spine, the mechanisms and some of the new technology that you use.
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Other than that, people I don’t think would be aware of it.
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So that is my take on the whole process.
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I’m thrilled that I met you.
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At the National Spine Health Foundation, we believe deeply in providing hope through shared stories and trusted education.
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Millions of people live with spine-related pain, and it can feel isolating, but you’re not alone.
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To hear more stories of spinal champions and to access spine health resources, visit us at spinehealth.org.
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Thank you for listening.