Her Doctor Said Fosamax Was Her Only Option. A Retired Rheumatology Nurse Told Her Why It Never Was.
Debbie Carver has kept the scorebook at every one of her granddaughter's softball games for 5 years. Then came a DEXA scan, a 12-minute appointment, and one prescription with nothing said about her jaw. Her dental hygienist was the first person to put the mirror down.
My doctor said Fosamax is my only option. She didn't tell me about the jaw dissolving part.
I Have Kept the Book at Every Game Since She Was 7
I have kept the scorebook at every one of Brooke's softball games since she was 7. She's my granddaughter, and she plays shortstop.
Before every game I sharpen 2 pencils for the scorebook.
For 26 years I ran the kitchen at the high school. When a boy had a peanut allergy, his mother knew what was on his tray before he did.
Every time Brooke came up to bat, I wondered how many more seasons I would get to keep that book.
I Paid Cash to Hear It. Twice.
2 years ago my first DEXA scan said osteopenia, and I paid $150 to hear it.
I pay for my own insurance until Medicare kicks in. It is $921 a month, and it still has a $2,750 deductible, so every scan comes out of the checkbook.
Every morning at 6 I take the big calcium pill with my coffee. Vitamin D and magnesium with supper. 5 prunes with my oatmeal.
I walked the track during Brooke's practices in a weighted vest until it bothered my back. Gary and I bought a vibration plate with our tax refund. It's in the spare room now. There's a laundry basket on it.
This year it was $175 to hear the rest of it, spine -2.9 and hip -2.4. Dr. Brennan said osteoporosis. She said that put me at high risk of a fracture.
She Gave Me 12 Minutes and One Prescription
I had waited 40 minutes in her lobby. She gave me 12.
I asked about hormones. My mother had breast cancer at 58.
"Not with your mother's history," Dr. Brennan said. "Hormones are out."
"Then Fosamax is your only option," she said. "Once a week, Sunday morning. A full glass of water. Stay upright for 30 minutes."
She typed while she talked. She did not look in my mouth.
Nobody in that room said the word jaw.
I said thank you. I have said thank you to every doctor I ever had.
The Bag Sat on Top of the Microwave
The Fosamax sat in the pharmacy bag on top of the microwave. I was going to take the first one Sunday.
Bending over the scorebook had started to leave an ache between my shoulder blades. I started holding my phone up instead of always looking down at it. I told Brooke it was my new bifocals.
By then I sat on the bottom row, where there were no steps to fall down. I told Brooke the top row made me dizzy.
I stopped playing catch with Brooke in the backyard. I told her my shoulder was sore.
My Hygienist Read the List and Set the Mirror Down
That Thursday I had my cleaning. Tammy has cleaned my teeth every 6 months for 11 years.
At the front desk they hand you a clipboard. They ask if anything has changed. I wrote Fosamax, starting Sunday.
Tammy read the clipboard with the light already in my face. The suction tube was still hooked in my cheek when Tammy set the mirror down.
"Did Dr. Brennan look in your mouth before she wrote that?" she said. I shook my head.
"The paper that comes in the bag says your doctor should check your mouth before you start," she said. "There's a jaw problem with that drug. It's rare. I've seen it. It's about 10 times more likely if you ever have a tooth pulled."
"In our office we call it fossy jaw," she said. "The bone in the jaw that won't heal. Ask her about your jaw. Before you take the first one."
Tammy's Word Was Fossy Jaw. Mine Was Dissolving.
That night at the kitchen table I typed fossy jaw into my phone. Then I turned it face down. Nothing had even loaded.
Tammy's word was fossy jaw. Mine was dissolving.
In 26 years I never once sent a tray out of that kitchen without telling a mother what was on it.
Dr. Brennan handed me the only option and left the jaw off the tray.
I didn't take it that Sunday. Monday morning I called Dr. Brennan's office. I asked about my jaw.
A Stranger Heard Me Say Fosamax Into the Phone Twice
Tuesday was the first game of the season, and I was on the bottom row with the book on my knees.
Dr. Brennan's office called me back at 5:10, in the second inning.
Her nurse said the jaw problem was rare. Fosamax was still my only option, she said. Start it Sunday.
The woman beside me was new that spring. I had never seen her before that night. She heard me say Fosamax into the phone twice.
When I hung up, she said, "Fosamax?"
I don't know why I told a stranger all of it, but I did, right through the third out.
Her name was Loretta. Her grandson Owen was the catcher. She and her husband had moved here in March to be near him.
Loretta had been a nurse in a rheumatology practice for 28 years. She said she used to make that exact phone call.
Then Brooke came up to bat. Neither of us said a word until she was safe at first. Loretta moved her stadium cushion over so I could have half of it.
It Was Never the Calcium. The Signal Went Quiet.
I asked her if Fosamax was really the only thing there was.
"It does what it says," she said. "It slows how fast you lose."
"Your bones are not a dead frame that just wears down," she said. "Bone is living tissue. Your whole life it breaks a little down and builds a little back."
"When you went through menopause, your estrogen dropped to almost nothing and the signal that tells your bone to build went quiet, and not one of the drugs turns that signal back on."
I told her I take the big calcium pill every morning with my coffee.
"So your bone was never told where to put the calcium you kept taking," she said. "Without that signal, it had nowhere to go, so it got dumped into your arteries, your kidneys, your soft tissues."
I missed the third out in the book.
"You were hardening the very places you do not want hardened, and starving the one place you do," she said.
That is why the calcium never worked. It was never the calcium. It was the missing signal.
| Calcium and the bone drugs | Purified shilajit resin | |
|---|---|---|
| Supplies the raw material | Yes | Yes |
| Slows how fast you lose it | Yes | Yes |
| Restores the instruction to rebuild | No | Yes |
| Women reversed osteoporosis on a randomized trial | No | Yes |
You're Allowed to Ask What's in the Bag
"Then why is Fosamax my only option?" I asked.
"With your mother's history, the hormone was off the table," she said. "That drug is what she had on the pad."
I asked her about my jaw.
"It's rare, like the nurse told you," she said. "Whether you take that drug is between you and Dr. Brennan. But you're allowed to ask her for time."
"I don't want to be the difficult patient," I said.
"You spent 26 years telling mothers what was on the tray," she said. "You're allowed to ask what's in the bag."
"Ask her what happens if you wait 6 months and do another DEXA scan," she said.
She Borrowed One of My Pencils and Wrote It on the Back Page
I said that still left me stuck. No hormones. And a drug that only slows it down.
"The answer was never more calcium, and it was never a drug," she said. "It was getting that signal back."
"You do not want hormones, and you do not need them," she said. "One thing restores your body's own estrogen signaling without being a hormone. It is the fulvic acid in a mineral called shilajit."
"Turn the signal back on, and your bone starts building again with the calcium you are already taking."
She borrowed one of my pencils. Loretta wrote it on the back page of my scorebook.
Every Woman Who Took It. Not Most of Them. Every One.
I asked her what it had ever done for anybody's bones.
"In a trial of women past menopause with osteoporosis, every single woman who took it reversed her osteoporosis," she said. "The placebo group got worse."
Reversed. I had paid cash for 2 DEXA scans that said the opposite.
My Mother Had Breast Cancer. I Had to Be Sure.
I said my mother's breast cancer was the whole reason I couldn't have hormones.
"Because it is not a hormone, it is safe even if breast cancer runs in your family," she said. "They tested shilajit on the exact breast cancer cells that feed on estrogen, and it triggered them to self-destruct while leaving the healthy cells alone."
I told her I'd heard enough about side effects for one week. She said in every human study ever done on shilajit, not one serious adverse event has ever been recorded. Not one.
I said I take a blood pressure pill every night. "It is a natural mineral resin, not a drug," she said. "There is nothing in it that fights the medications you are already taking."
For the first time since Tammy set the mirror down, I let my breath all the way out.
I asked why Dr. Brennan had never mentioned it.
"Nobody can patent a mountain resin, so it was never going to be on the list of options a doctor is handed," she said.
So What Is It, and What Is Actually in the Box
"Mine comes from a company called Optimum," she said. "A small box of 60 tablets, 200 milligrams each. It's 78% fulvic acid. Most of what you find on Amazon is 15 or 20%."
She said it comes from the Altai mountains, cold pressed. Optimum is a small family company in Florida, and an independent third party lab tests every batch for heavy metals and mycotoxins.
"2 tablets a day with a meal," she said. "Each one is about the size of a baby aspirin."
I ordered it at 10:40 that night, at the kitchen table. It has a 90 day money back guarantee.
The Thursday before, at that same table, I turned my phone face down before a page could load. I waited for this one.
I Asked Dr. Brennan for 6 Months
That Friday I asked Dr. Brennan what would happen if I waited 6 months and did another DEXA scan.
She looked at me over her glasses for a long time.
"6 months," she said. "Then another DEXA scan. Then we talk about the Fosamax again."
I thanked her, and this time I meant something by it. The pharmacy bag stayed on top of the microwave.
From the Bottom Row to the Top Row
Week 1 I felt nothing, and I told my daughter Amy I was going to send it back. "Give it till the end of the month," Loretta said at Thursday's game.
Week 2 I slept until 6 without once waking up to turn over. I told Gary it was the new pillow.
Week 4 I read Amy's text looking straight down at my phone, and nothing between my shoulder blades said a word. I had not felt the ache in my shoulders all week.
Week 6 Loretta asked if I wanted to walk the loop around the fields between games, and I said yes before she finished asking.
Sometime in the second month I noticed I was keeping the pitch count in my head again.
Month 3 I played catch with Brooke in the backyard until the streetlights came on.
The 5 days in August I left my box on Amy's counter, the ache between my shoulder blades was back by the third morning.
Month 5 I sat in the top row for both games of the Saturday doubleheader. My lower back never once ached on those planks.
Brooke hollered up at the top row, "Grandma, you moved!"
Options. With an S on the End.
Month 6 was the DEXA scan.
Dr. Brennan read both numbers out loud. Then she read them again.
The spine had gone from -2.9 to -2.3, and the hip from -2.4 to -1.9.
She said my spine was not in osteoporosis anymore. She could not tell me why. Then she said, "That gives us some options."
Options. With an s on the end.
She left the Fosamax where it was and said we would do another DEXA scan in a year.
I cannot promise you it was only the tablets. They were the only thing I changed.
The Last Game of the Fall Season
At the last game of the fall season I kept the book for every inning.
I kept it from the top row. You can see the whole field from up there. Loretta and I shared her stadium cushion, the way we had every Tuesday and Thursday since April.
"Top row suits you," she said.
In the fifth inning Brooke started a double play and looked straight up at the top row to see if I had it in the book. I had it in the book. 6-4-3, in pencil, in my handwriting.
I did not wonder once that night how many more seasons I would get to keep it.
Down on the bottom row there was a grandmother I didn't know, holding her phone up at eye level to read it. I knew that way of holding a phone.
Between innings I climbed down and sat next to her. I told her I used to hold mine the same way. Her DEXA scan was the next morning. She hadn't slept.
I told her 2 things. Ask them for every option, not just the one on the pad. And if they hand you a prescription, ask somebody to look in your mouth before you swallow the first one.
Tammy said the second one to me first. I did not say dissolving to a woman who hadn't slept.
Then I tore a page out of the back of next spring's scorebook and wrote shilajit on it for her. It was the first page I have ever torn out of a scorebook.
I bought the scorebook for next spring before this season was even over. Brooke will be a freshman. I already wrote her number on the first page.
This season's book is in my kitchen drawer. The back page still has Loretta's handwriting on it.
If your doctor just handed you the only option, you are allowed to ask what's in the bag.
Real Women, Real Results
What Women Are Saying on Facebook
These are public comments women left on Facebook. Nobody was asked for them and nobody was paid for them. They are copied here exactly as they were posted, names and all.
Where Can I Get Optimum Shilajit?
It is only on the official website. The shilajit in it is purified Altai resin at 78% fulvic acid, and a small family in Florida independently third party lab tests every batch for heavy metals and mold. It is California Prop 65 compliant.
It is not on Amazon and it is not at GNC, because the company does not sell through resellers.
"I take off a fraction of a star only because so many of my patients have told me they wish they had found it years earlier, before they spent thousands on calcium that was never going to work. The DEXA improvements speak for themselves."
Every order is covered by a 90-day money-back guarantee. Either you are happy with your results, or you send it back and they refund you. No questions.
The Questions Women Ask Me Most
It is a mineral, not a drug. There is nothing in it that fights the medications you are already taking.
No. It does not add any estrogen to you. It turns your body's own estrogen signaling back up.
Ask your doctor to look in your mouth first. The paper that comes in the bag says to. The jaw problem is rare, and it is about 10 times more likely if a tooth has to come out.
Nothing happened for Debbie in week 1 and she almost sent it back. The first real change was sleep in week 2, and the scan was month 6.
They give you 90 days to send it back.
Nobody can patent a mountain resin, so it was never going to be on the list of options a doctor is handed.
Dr. Norton has spent more than 2 decades treating postmenopausal women with bone loss, and has read over 4,000 bone density scans. She was diagnosed with osteoporosis herself at 56. She writes about what those scans do and do not show, so that women can ask better questions about their own bones.
