How to know if you have osteoporosis?

How to know if you have osteoporosis? many people think osteoporosis is a disease of old age, and they are still very young. In fact, People’s bone density has slowly declined since their 30s. In other words, there are many people with osteoporosis in their 30s and 40s, and osteoporosis can occur at any age.

Early detection and diagnosis is the key to reducing osteoporotic fractures. So what performance can help us judge whether there is a risk of osteoporosis?

People at high risk of osteoporosis

• Age ≥ 65 years old;
• Has fallen and fractured since the age of 40;
• Have a family history of osteoporotic fractures;
• Early menopause (menopause before the age of 45);
• Low weight; height shortened by 4cm or annual shortened by 2cm;
• Long-term low calcium intake; smoking; alcoholism; excessive caffeine intake;
• Long-term bed rest; easy to fall;
• Steroid hormones are used for more than 2 or 3 months;
• Suffering from hypogonadism or rheumatoid joints.

What are the manifestations of osteoporosis?

Pain: Pain is the most common and main symptom of osteoporosis, most common in the lower back.

Shorter height and humpback: It is caused by deformed and fractured vertebral bodies caused by osteoporosis.

Fractures: The most serious consequence of osteoporosis is fractures. Common sites include the hip, thoracolumbar spine, distal radius, proximal humerus, and ankle. It is often a minor collision, a fall, or it happens without knowing it. In addition, some patients may have no pain or other symptoms at all, which is only found after fracture or bone density examination.

Want to know if your risk of osteoporosis is high?

Take a minute to test it yourself

The International Osteoporosis Foundation (IOF) Osteoporosis Risk One-minute Test Questions are based on the patient’s simple medical history to select osteoporosis-related problems, and the patient will judge whether it is correct or not, and thus preliminarily screen out possible osteoporosis risks Of patients. The test is simple, fast, easy to operate, and can be used for preliminary screening of disease risks.

For these questions, as long as the answer to one of them is “yes”, it is positive, indicating that there is a risk of osteoporosis, and it is recommended to perform a bone density test.

How is osteoporosis diagnosed?

The diagnosis of osteoporosis is mainly based on DXA bone density measurements and/or fragility fractures. At present, there are three methods for bone density measurement in various hospitals: dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA), ultrasonic bone density measurement, and quantitative CT (QCT) stereo bone density measurement. Among them, the dual-energy X-ray absorption method of bone mineral density measurement is the gold standard for the diagnosis of osteoporosis recognized by the World Health Organization (WHO).

The picture shows the dual-energy X-ray absorption method

It has the following advantages: high accuracy and fast speed; wide clinical application; reasonable price for examination; low radiation dose, only 1/150 of a chest radiograph. Clinicians recommend that bone mineral density be tested at least once a year, and if necessary, high-risk groups can be shortened to six months or three months based on clinical conditions.

(source:internet, reference only)

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