I believe it is a myth that too much protein intake causes bone loss - this summarizes the point: Gabe Mirkin, M.D.: Studies done many years ago suggested that eating a lot of protein increases calcium loss in the urine and therefore it was thought that eating protein weakens bones by taking calcium out of them. However, recent studies show that eating protein increases calcium absorption so the extra calcium in the urine comes from increased absorption, not from being take out of bones. Reports in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (Volume 78, Issue 3, 2003) show that eating plenty of protein and lots of foods from plants helps to keep bones strong. Most scientists now feel that a very low-protein diet can cause osteoporosis, while a moderately high-protein diet may help to prevent it.

Hello. Im 43 yrs old. I will start with I have a lot of medical issues and have always been a healthy being from physical labor to foods I ate to exercise. 5'10 120lbs most my life. Had a job doing highway maintenance and a coworker dropped a jackhammer on my head in 99'. Went into landscaping in 2010 and in 2011 woke one morning with what i thought to be a neck cramp sleeping wrong. Nope; herniated disc. Did a cervical fusion at 5/6 february of 2012 and said all looked great healing on xray. Continued to complain of severe pain and weakness. Surgeon kept ignoring it saying its perm nerve damage due to waiting surgery to long. Took a road trip to Florida from Nebraska and back. Both my husband and I having CDL's did the run both ways pretty quick. Big mistake for me. A week later spent 10 days in the hospital with a pulmonary embolism in each lung. Hematologist put me on warfarin indefinately with low dose aspirin for a MTHFR clotting factor. That was the following Sept of 2012. Still continued repeat followups with complaints of pain and weakness. Went to family doc in May 2013 exhausted, fatigued, bones hurt like the flu constantly. My Vit D was at a 7 and min should be 32. Now diagnosed with Vit D deficiency. 5k mg a day plus caltrate D. December 26th 2014 we were hit by a drunk driver. Went to same neurosurgery facility but requested a diff surgeon. After CT scan it showed no bone growth from prior surgery and herniated disc now at 6/7. She was ticked at prior surgeon to not do a CT to check for sure. She did surgery again even with a fatality rate at 70% due to the MTHFR and coming off warfarin and taking lovenox shots in stomach. Cant do ANY lovenox day prior to surgery because causes actual clot in the spine when surgery performed there making risk even higher of fatality. Well she did great. Came out and said the drunk that hit us made me realize pain more so because apparently since no bone grew the screws came loose in the titanium plate and my neck was highly unstable. She didnt use cadaver bone on this one. Ground my hip bone. Actually was the worst pain ever. A year later follow up xray showed bone healing. Vit D at 31 so fam doc ended vit d supplement just continue caltrate d. Another 3 months later still complaining of pain in neck n feels like will collapse forward and choking hard to swallow. Did CT and showed zero bone growth yet AGAIN! WHAT THE HECK?!?! She was asking what im taking. Asked why i stopped Vit D. Was ticked again. Now she sent me to an Endocrinologist. Suspects osteoporosis now. Been on 5k mg Vit D and caltrate 5 months now. Trying to keep bone density up to try surgery one last time. Well went to then again today and now ordered bone density test and says he wishes me to continue Vit D and Caltrate D and now wants to do the Forteo for 2 years then onto the Prolia after that. I will leave reply of this bone density test numbers and after use of each medication to see where exactly if any benefits helped or any side effects. Fingers crossed I live through the next surgery to report about end results but wont be for a while yet. Its necessary to keep my neck from collapsing and severing my spinal chord. Just so everyone is clear why i have to do surgery. Optomistic right? Lol.

Theresa, I'm so sorry for your losses. And post-holiday blues are very common, I think. You'll snap out of your funk soon. Then you'll be back to creating beautiful quilts as you always do. Take care.

Let’s leave out the adulterated aspect of medicine and science for a moment to clarify the fact that medicine is a science based field, grounded in biology, physiology, inorganic chemistry, organic chemistry, medicinal chemistry, pharmacokinetics, clinical trials (evidence-based medicine). Moreover, modern medicine has advanced through experimentation, statistical analysis, and reproducible researches. It’s interesting to note that the author (Miller) in the pubmed article above is not a MD, only holding a Bachelor of Science degree. His arguments of diagnosis as using past cases to infer current ones, and treatment as an educated guess about the future are misleading because medicine is a science-based practice applied to complex, unpredictable systems (i.e. human, animal), which means it also requires judgment, experience, and probabilistic reasoning. However it’s well known that medicine can be less predictable than science fields like engineering because patients are highly variable (genetics, environment, behavior), clinical decisions are often made under uncertainty, and predictions are probabilistic and not exact - so some people on Fosamax over time may develop jaw necrosis, but many people may not.