Osteoporosis Pain: What You Can Do

Osteoporosis itself isn't painful. But when the condition is severe, it can lead to fractures and other painful problems.

The pain is usually more severe than the aches many people feel as they get older. But you don’t have to just grin and bear it. You and your doctor have a range of options to choose from to help you find relief.

Compression Fractures and Osteoporosis Pain

The most common cause of osteoporosis pain is a spinal compression fracture. It can cause:

• Sudden, severe back pain that gets worse when you are standing or walking with some relief when you lie down
• Trouble twisting or bending your body, and pain when you do
• Loss of height
• A curved spine called kyphosis, also known as a “dowager’s hump.”

Bones are fragile in osteoporosis. Fractures can happen even from simple movements that don't seem dangerous, for example lifting a bag of groceries, twisting to get out of a car, or tripping slightly on a rug.

Fractures can take months to heal. The pain should start to go away as the bone begins to repair itself. However, for some people, osteoporosis pain can last longer.

If you hurt, talk to your doctor. She can help you find ways to manage it.

Medication

Medication is the most popular way to manage osteoporosis pain. Your doctor can prescribe some for you or recommend some over-the-counter treatments you can buy at the drugstore. Meds that may help include:

• Pain relievers like acetaminophen, aspirin, ibuprofen, and naproxen. They’re safe for most people, but they may cause stomach irritation and bleeding or liver problems if you take them for a long time. So check with your doctor to be sure they’re OK for you.
• Prescription pain drugs. They can help you feel better in the short-term. But there are some that shouldn’t be taken for a long time. So they may not be a good choice if you have long-lasting pain from osteoporosis.
• Antidepressant medication. It can help people deal with chronic pain. Your doctor may prescribe one for you if you’ve tried other pain relief that hasn’t helped.

Physical Relief

Your doctor may suggest other techniques that can help you ease your pain:

• Heat and ice. Warm showers or hot packs can ease stiff muscles. Cold can numb aching areas and reduce swelling.
• Physical therapy. Osteoporosis pain may make it hard for you to be physically active. But you may feel worse when you don’t move very much. A physical therapist can help you find a safe exercise programand teach you movements that can help you feel better.
• Braces and supports. A back brace can relieve pain after a spinal fracture. It can also let you move around normally while your spine is healing. But depending on one too long can make your muscles weaker. If you use a brace, begin exercising to strengthen your back muscles as soon as your doctor says it is safe.
• Acupuncture, acupressure, and massage therapy. These treatments all may help ease pain and tension. But be sure that you talk with your doctor before you try these treatments. She can let you know which ones are safe for you and what to look for in a practitioner.

Mind-Body Therapy

Research has found that some types of psychological help can let people handle long-lasting pain. One or more of these mind-body therapies may work for you:

• Guided imagery helps you focus on positive words, phrases, or pleasing images. It keeps your attention off your pain.
• Relaxation training teaches you how to focus and breathe deeply. This relaxes muscles and relieves aches and tension.
• Biofeedback uses a special machine that helps you learn to control basic body functions such as your heart rate and muscle tension. It can help you master relaxation skills and ease pain.
• Talk therapy can be helpful when your pain causes you emotional stress and depression. These feelings can make you hurt even more. A therapist can help you learn healthy ways to deal with stress that can make it easier to manage pain.

Surgery

If medication, physical therapy, rest, or other techniques don’t work for your pain, your doctor may recommend surgery.

There are two types of surgery for treating compression fractures: vertebroplasty and kyphoplasty. With vertebroplasty, your doctor uses a needle to inject a bone cement mixture into the fracture to help it heal. 

With kyphoplasty, your doctor inflates a small balloon in the fracture to create a hollow space. Then the doctor fills it with the bone cement mixture. These procedures seem to work best if you have them within 8 weeks of getting the spinal fracture.

How to Use Food Labels to Prevent Heart Disease

Browsing the aisles of the grocery store? There are simple steps you can take to look out for your heart's health.

Fruits and vegetables, olive oil, fish, lean meats, beans, and nuts are easy picks. You already know they’re great for you.

But when you’re buying packaged foods, you’ll want to check the nutrition label to know what you’re getting. Pay special attention to these things:

Serving size. It may be smaller than you think. If your serving is bigger, you’ll get more calories, fat, salt, and anything else that’s in the food.

You’ll also see percentages on the label. Those show you what percentage you get of your daily recommended amount, called your “Daily Value” or “DV,” from a serving. For example, it might say one serving will give you 40% of the salt you can get in an entire day, so you can limit salt for the rest of the day.

Keep in mind that the Daily Value is based on you getting 2,000 calories a day. That’s more than many people need, especially women or those trying to lose weight. So you may need to adjust for the number of calories you actually eat.

Fat. All fat is not the same. Some types, like the omega-3s in salmon, tuna, mackerel, walnuts, and flaxseeds, are good for you. Others will clog up your arteries, which can make a heart attack more likely. So when you check the label, you need to know what you’re looking at when it comes to fat.

Nutrition labels break out saturated, unsaturated, and trans fat. If a food is high in fat but it is mostly unsaturated fat, it can still be good for you.

Still, you need to limit fats, even the ones that are good for you:

• All fat you eat should account for no more 35% of your daily calories.
• Saturated fat (found in animal products) should make up less than 10%.
• Avoid trans fat. Some items that say they are “trans fat free” can still have up to 0.5 grams of trans fat per serving. So check the ingredients list for hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils, which are trans fats.

Sodium. Too much will raise your blood pressure, which puts wear and tear on your blood vessels. What’s too much varies based on things including your age, race, and whether you have high blood pressure. At most, you would get 2,300 milligrams a day, which is about 1 teaspoon of salt. It’s even less, 1,500 milligrams per day, for people who are:

• Over 50
• African-American
• Have high blood pressure, diabetes, or chronic kidney disease (Keep in mind that a lot of people have these conditions and don’t know it. So if you’re not sure, ask your doctor.)

Nutrition labels tell you how much sodium is in a food, and check the ingredients list, too. Many types of sodium may be hiding there, including sodium nitrate, sodium citrate, monosodium glutamate, and sodium benzoate.

Sugar. When you eat too much, your body stores it as a type of fat in your blood called triglycerides, says Kacie Vavrek, a cardiovascular nutritionist at Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center. High triglycerides can put you at a higher risk for heart disease.

Food labels now show how much sugar is added. You can also check the ingredients list for things like corn syrup, high-fructose corn syrup, corn sweetener, and nearly any word ending in “ose,” such as dextrose, fructose, maltose, and sucrose.

Sugar is in many products, including some you might not expect, like salad dressing and ketchup. So check, even on items you don’t think of as being sweet. Compare different products and limit how much you get.

Fiber. It cuts down on “bad” cholesterol levels and lowers the risk of heart disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes.

Vavrek recommends that you look for at least 2 or 3 grams per serving of fiber in cereal and bread products. Again, check the ingredients list. You should see the word “whole” in front of wheat, barley, oats, rye, and corn. Sometimes even brown bread is not packed with whole grains and instead is just processed white bread.

10 Tips for Better Heart Health

Your heart works hard for you nonstop for your whole life. So show it some TLC.

Making small changes in your habits can make a real difference to your ticker.

"It's like finding the fountain of youth," says Donald Lloyd-Jones, MD, of Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine. "People who follow these steps not only live longer, but they also spend a lot more time healthy, without cardiovascular disease."

You don't have to work on all 10 steps at once. Even if you improve just one or two of these areas, you can make yourself less likely to get heart disease. Of course, the more tips on this list you follow, the better. So let’s get started.

1. Aim for lucky number seven

The next time you're tempted to stay up later than you should, remember how comfy that pillow will feel and how good a full night's sleep is for your heart.

In one study, young and middle-age adults who slept 7 hours a night had less calcium in their arteries (an early sign of heart disease) than those who slept 5 hours or less or those who slept 9 hours or more.

The type of shut-eye they got was important, too. Adults who said they got good-quality sleep also had healthier arteries than those who didn't sleep soundly.

If you have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep at night, or if you don't feel refreshed after a full night in bed, talk to your doctor about what changes you can make to help.

2. Keep the pressure off

That cuff squeezing your arm at every doctor's visit is important. It measures the amount of pressure flowing through your arteries with every heartbeat.

If your blood pressure gets too high, the extra force can damage artery walls and create scar tissue. That makes it harder for blood and oxygen to get to and from your heart. The heart has to pump harder and gets worn out faster. If it can't get enough oxygen, parts can start to die.

Get your blood pressure checked every 3-5 years if you’re 18-39. If you’re 40 or older, or if you have high blood pressure, check it every year.

Cut back on salt, limit alcohol to no more than one to two drinks a day, favor healthy eating habits (think fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and lean protein) manage your stress, and work out. These changes are often enough to bring your blood pressure back down into the normal range. If not, your doctor might recommend you also take medication.

3. Slash saturated fats

To help your heart’s arteries, cut down on saturated fats, which are mainly found in meat and full-fat dairy products. Choose leaner cuts and reduced-fat options.

Also, totally quit trans fats, which are found in some processed foods. They drive up your “bad” (LDL) cholesterol level. Check ingredient lists for anything that says “hydrogenated” or “partially hydrogenated” -- those are trans fats.

If it’s been 5 or more years since your last cholesterol blood test, you’re probably due for one.

4. Find out if you have diabetes

Millions of people don’t know that they have this condition. That’s risky because over time, high blood sugar damages arteries and makes heart disease more likely.

Your doctor should test your blood sugar if you are 45 or older, if you are pregnant, or if you're overweight and have other risk factors for diabetes.

If you find out that you have diabetes, work with your doctor on your lifestyle (diet and exercise) and any medicine that you may need.

If you have borderline high blood sugar, also called prediabetes, take action now to turn things around.

One simple swap is to trade processed carbs (like white rice) for fiber-rich whole grains (like brown rice). Every positive change you make in what you eat and how active you are will help. Over time, you’ll be able to do more.

5. Move more

To keep it simple, you can aim for 30 minutes a day, 5 days a week of moderate exercise. That includes any activity that gets you moving around and breaking a slight sweat.

“If you're doing nothing, do something. And if you're doing something, do more," Lloyd-Jones says.

Also, pay attention to how much time you spend seated, whether it's at work, in your car, or on your couch at home. You want to cut that time down.

"We now know that even if you exercise for 30 minutes a day, being sedentary for the other 23 1/2 hours is really bad for your heart," says Monika Sanghavi, MD, assistant professor of cardiology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.

Break up long periods of sitting, and stand or walk while doing things like talking on the phone or watching TV.

6. Clean up

Your heart works best when it runs on clean fuel. That means lots of whole, plant-based foods (like fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds) and fewer refined or processed foods (like white bread, pasta, crackers, and cookies).

It’s time-tested wisdom. "The latest fads get overplayed by the media. But the core of what makes a heart-healthy eating pattern hasn't changed for decades," Lloyd-Jones says.

One of the fastest ways to clean up your diet is to cut out sugary beverages like soda and fruit juice, which lacks the fiber that’s in actual fruit.

"We drink way too many of our calories," Sanghavi says. "And those calories don't fill us up the way real food does, so we have them in addition to everything else we're eating, with no nutritional benefit."

7. Think beyond the scale

Ask your doctor if your weight is OK. If you have some pounds to lose, you’ll probably want to change your eating habits and be more active. But there’s more to it than that.

For many people, “emotional eating” is where they find comfort and stress relief, and how they celebrate. So if it’s hard to change those patterns, it can help to talk with a counselor to find other ways to handle those situations. 

8. Ditch the cigarettes, real and electronic

Smoking and secondhand smoke are bad for your heart. If you smoke, quit, and don't spend time around others who smoke as well.

E-cigarettes are popular, but they’re not completely problem-free. "They don't contain the harmful chemicals in cigarette smoke, and they can help some people wean themselves off of smoking," Lloyd-Jones says. "But they still do contain nicotine, so your goal should be to quit completely, not just switch to a less toxic version." 

9. Do more of what you love

"I tell my patients that managing stress in a healthy way, whether it's meditation, yoga, or exercise, is really important," Sanghavi says.

Make it a point, too, to spend time with people you’re close to. Talk, laugh, confide, and enjoy each other. It’s good for your emotional health and your heart.

10. Celebrate every step

Making changes like these takes time and effort. Think progress, not perfection. And reward yourself for every positive step you take. Ask your friends and family to support you and join in, too. Your heart’s future will be better for it!

How to Keep Your Heart Healthy

The best way look after your heart is with a healthy lifestyle.

Be smoke-free

Being smoke free is one of the best things you can do to protect your heart.

Manage your blood cholesterol

Cholesterol is a fatty substance carried in your blood. Your body needs cholesterol to be healthy, but an imbalance of cholesterol in your blood can lead to a heart attack or stroke. 

Manage your blood pressure

Blood pressure isn’t usually something you can feel. If it’s too high, it needs to be treated. Read about blood pressure and what you can do to control high blood pressure
Manage diabetes

It’s important to manage your diabetes to help prevent a heart attack or stroke. 

Be physically active

Regular, moderate physical activity is great for your heart health. It’s never too late to start and get the benefits. It’s also important to sit less during your day and break up your sitting time.

Achieve and maintain a healthy weight

Maintaining a healthy weight can reduce the risk of heart disease and other health problems. It can help to know your body mass index and waist measurements and what these mean.

Enjoy a variety of nutritious foods

Eating a varied diet of healthy foods can help with your weight, blood pressure and cholesterol.

There are also specific changes you can make to your diet to help prevent heart disease:

• Eat less salt: Reducing your salt intake is good for your blood pressure. 
• Replace unhealthy fats with healthy fats: Replacing saturated and trans fats with unsaturated fats can reduce your risk of heart disease. 
• Limit alcoho

Look after your mental health

We know that there can be a greater risk of heart disease for people who have depression, are socially isolated or do not have good social support. Having a good social life with family and friends can help. 

Depression is more than feeling sad or low. If you feel depressed for more than two weeks, talk to your doctor, a family member or someone you know well.

6 Simple Steps to Keep Your Heart Healthy

Keeping your heart healthy is simple when you look at the big picture: Get exercise. Eat right. Stress less. Watch your weight. Don’t smoke.

Putting those goals into action, of course, isn’t so simple. Which matter most? How can you put them into daily practice?

Here are practical hints for a way of life that makes you feel great while it strengthens your heart.

Make Time to Play

Adults need at least 30 minutes of exercise five or more days a week for heart health. Make exercise playtime and you're more likely to get it done. Play kickball with your kids, walk the dog, or shoot hoops, or go "mall-walking" with co-workers on your lunch break.

Go for a total of at least 30 minutes of exercise daily -- and break it up, if you like. Aim for a 10-minute morning walk, workout with hand weights at lunch, and some digging in the garden before dinner, and you’ve met your goals.

"Folks should get their heart rate up so they’re somewhat breathless, but can still carry on a conversation," says Susan Moores, RD, MS, of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. All kinds of exercises are important, from strength training and aerobics, to flexibility and stretching exercises.

Add the 'Food Rules' to Your Memory

• Limit Bad Fat: If you eat a typical American diet, this one change can bring dramatic results: Eat less saturated fat. You can "reduce your risk of heart issues by half," says Christine Gerbstadt, MD, RD. Start by switching to low-fat meat and dairy, and change to healthier fats like olive and canola oils.
• Cut the Salt: Cook without salt, limit processed foods, and go easy on the salt shaker. Aim to bring down the sodium you eat to 1,500 milligrams, the American Heart Association's daily limit.
• Pump Up Produce: Eat at least 2 1/2 cups of vegetables and fruit every day. You'll lower your risk for heart disease, stroke, and cancer. And there's a slimming bonus: "For all the nutrients fruits and vegetables provide, you’re also getting few calories," says Kerry Neville, MS, RD, "And they fill you up."
• Go for Grains: Whole grains help lower cholesterol and blood pressure, and may help prevent type 2 diabetes. Think about corn tortillas, whole wheat pancakes and pasta, bulgur wheat, oatmeal, quinoa, and chewy, delicious brown rice or wild rice.

Soothe Stress

Doing absolutely nothing can be a big part of keeping your heart healthy. Be sure to "relax and unplug daily," says Moores. "Stress is a significant villain of heart health and really any health issue. It can wreak havoc."

Carve out time for yourself regularly. Walk away from the computer, the phone, and other distractions. Make time to recharge your batteries, to find both energy and calm.

Work Toward a Healthy Body Weight

Gaining weight is a constant threat for most Americans in our world of cheap, convenient, and decadent foods. And extra pounds -- especially if you tip into obesity -- raise the risk of a heart attack, stroke, and high blood pressure.

Now the good news: Losing even a few pounds starts you on the road to a healthier heart. Lose a few more and you're likely to have more energy and sleep better, too. Here are the basics:

• Go for good nutrition: Choose foods that are rich in nutrients, not just empty calories. A can of regular cola has over 120 calories and a lot of added sugar. Added sugar can give you a lot of empty calories without a lot of nutritional benefits. For a nutrient-packed snack worth the calories, try a palmful of mixed nuts. That has about 165 calories and is packed with protein and heart-healthy fats.
• Balance calories: Be aware of the balance between the calories you eat and the calories your body needs. To lose weight, eat fewer calories than you burn.
• Get physical: Get moving at least 30 minutes daily, most days of the week. Children and teens need at least 60 minutes of activity each day.

Find Your Personal Best Way to Quit Smoking

Cancer, lung disease, a higher chance of a heart attack: The damages smoking can do are well-known. Did you know that tobacco is also linked to early menopause, infertility, and pregnancy complications?

There’s no best way to quit smoking. Medicine, support groups, counseling, or a combination of all three may be what it takes to help you quit. Reach out, get help.

Schedule Checkups

Regular blood pressure, blood sugar, and cholesterol checks, as well as physical exams, are important to keep your heart healthy. Two conditions that can hurt your heart -- high blood pressure and high cholesterol -- are "silent." That means you typically won't know you have them unless you get tested. Ask your doctor how often you need a heart checkup and put the next one on your calendar now.