May is National Osteoporosis Awareness and Prevention Month

When May arrives every year, I think of my mother. Although it’s true that Mother's Day is in mid-May, May is also National Osteoporosis Awareness and Prevention Month. For the last ten years of her life, my mother suffered greatly from complications of osteoporosis.  Osteoporosis is a condition where your bones become weak, making them more likely to break. Nearly 54 million Americans have low bone mass or osteoporosis, according to the National Osteoporosis Foundation (NOF), a health organization dedicated to preventing osteoporosis and broken bones through awareness, education, and research.  This silent but devastating disease affects more women than men. Women have a 50% chance of suffering a hip, spine, or wrist fracture during their lifetime. However, this bone disease doesn't affect only women; nearly 30% of men will also experience a broken bone from osteoporosis. Osteoporosis-related fractures aren't just painful; they can be deadly. One in four women and one in three men WILL DIE within one year of experiencing a broken hip. If you are female, the likelihood of you breaking a bone from osteoporosis is equal to your risk of having breast, uterine, and ovarian cancer COMBINED. My mother broke her left wrist when she was 74 years old when tripping on a curb while trying to catch a bus in downtown Seattle. Four years later, she fell when getting out of bed in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, breaking her hip.  I gently suggested that she get her injury checked out by her doctor, but she stubbornly insisted to me, "It's not broken, I just sprained my knee." She hobbled around on it for nearly two weeks before she gave in and saw a doctor, but by then it was too late. The bone of her right upper leg had split apart, then started knitting together in the wrong position as she walked on it, leaving her with the discomfort and awkwardness of having one leg an inch shorter than the other for the rest of her life.  Although its complications show up in old age, osteoporosis can start in childhood because the thinner your bones are when young, the more likely you'll experience a fracture later in life.  We build nearly 90 percent of our peak bone mass before we turn 20 years old. In middle age, that process begins to reverse. We lose 1% of our bone mass every year, doubling to 2% every year for women after menopause. Find out more about osteoporosis at the National Osteoporosis Foundation website, www.nof.org.