Life is a whirlwind of challenges at any age. But when you hit perimenopause and later enter menopause, things seem to move even faster. As your hormones wind down, symptoms and challenges ramp up.
You may find that it’s harder to get to sleep and stay asleep. You may struggle with daytime drowsiness or brain fog. You might suffer from intense hot flashes that are embarrassing and uncomfortable during the day and soak your sheets plus wreck your sleep at night.
But the hormonal decreases you experience in menopause and the years leading up to it cause less obvious changes, too. One of the most important has to do with your bone density and strength.
Our expert rheumatologists and medical providers at the Rheumatology Center of New Jersey recommend periodic bone scans to evaluate how strong your bones remain during menopause. If you have or are at risk for osteoporosis, we customize a treatment plan at our offices in Monroe, Flemington, and Somerville, New Jersey.
How are osteoporosis and menopause connected? Below is a brief explanation.
Estrogen is one of the female hormones (though men have some, too) that decreases dramatically during perimenopause and menopause. The estrogen hormones — particularly the estrogen called estradiol — are instrumental in bone health.
When you’re young, your bones create plenty of new bone cells, called osteoblasts. The osteoblasts rapidly and completely replace any old bone cells that have degraded or died.
Osteoclasts are another type of bone cell that do just the opposite of osteoblasts. Instead of building new cells, they pull apart the old, degraded ones. Until you reach your peak bone mass at about age 30, your osteoblasts easily replace all the bone cells your osteoclasts destroy.
Estrogen helps keep your bones strong during this period because it slows the rate at which osteoclasts remove old bone cells. But once estrogen dips, the osteoclasts aren’t hindered anymore. The osteoblasts can’t build enough new bone to replace the bone that the osteoclasts remove.
Another confounding factor that affects the rate of bone loss after menopause is that your change of life also brings changes to your muscle mass. Due to the lack of hormones such as estrogen and testosterone, it’s harder to keep your muscles strong and bulky and easier to gain fat.
How do muscles affect your bone mass? Strong muscles put tension on your bones, even when they’re at rest. This tension creates enough stress on the bone to stimulate it to create new bone cells.
When your muscles weaken, though, they don’t exert enough stress on your bones to stimulate your osteoblasts. Losing muscle, in fact, may be even more detrimental to your health than losing bone mass. Muscle is a dense tissue that stimulates your metabolism.
The more muscle you have, the easier it is to build and maintain muscle and, therefore, your bones. Of course, the stronger your muscles are and the better attachments they have to your bones, the less likely you are to fall and fracture a bone.
Unfortunately, unless you replace and enhance your estrogen levels, menopause weakens your bones.
Women lose about 10% of their bone density within five years after hitting menopause, at around age 51. In the first 10 years of menopause, you can lose about 40% of the spongy inner core in your bones and 10% of your harder, outer bone. Bone loss continues as you age.
No matter how old you are now, turning your attention to your bone health helps protect you from future or further bone loss.
Depending on your age, risk factors, and — if needed — the results of your bone scan, we customize a treatment plan to strengthen your bones and slow or prevent accelerated bone loss.
At any age, adopt lifestyle changes that build strong bones:
As you head into perimenopause and menopause you may consider other interventions. Hormone replacement therapy can keep your estrogen levels high enough to prevent bone loss.
We also offer intravenous therapies, such as Boniva® and Reclast®, which slow bone loss through 1-3 infusions per year.
Are you in or heading toward menopause and at risk for osteoporosis? Protect your bones with a bone scan, evaluation, and treatment plan today by calling our helpful team or booking an appointment online. We serve Monroe, Flemington, and Somerville, New Jersey, and surrounding areas.
