
Originally Posted by
mudmucker
I do have a general question on prevention.
I will be 47 this year. I have not reached the big M yet - I am still very regular but in the last couple of years, intermittently, I have had a few unusual months. Likely my body is beginning to react to an impending change. All my life, I have been athletic and fairly fit so there has been weight bearing stuff present. However in the last 5 years or so I have made a particularly greater and conscious effort to incorporate more weight bearing exercise (some lifting and some weekly running), and to consume more calcium in order to ward off the big O. I am doing this for good practice, maintenance and hopefully future prevention.
My question is for those of you who are a little ahead of me on this journey and have had more dialog with doctors; does my conscious effort to do weight bearing now, matter that much in terms of future loss once the estrogen levels get really low? I sense that it helps now, because I haven't gone through menopause yet and I still have cycles. But later? Does bone loss just begin to occur at a more rapid and uncontrollable rate after menopause and there's not much I can do to stop it other than medications or how I am genetically? Or can the weight bearing help after menopause in an attempt to slow everything down.
after losing 4% of my bone mass since 2004
Yikes!