Osteoporosis Symptoms, What Are They? - Dr. Siris (VIDEO)

Dr. Siris:

What’s fascinating is there are no symptoms of osteoporosis. It’s a silent problem. You silently lose bone until the bone actually breaks, and then of course, you have the symptoms of a broken bone. If you break your wrist, it’s swollen, it’s in tremendous pain and you have to have it casted. If you sustain a hip fracture, you have to go to the hospital and have your hip fixed surgically and then recover from that.

Spine fractures, which are also common fractures, broken bones that the current osteoporosis cause often quite a bit of back pain but if you never go and have an x-ray you don’t know that you’ve broken a bone. About a third of the people who break bones in the back actually find out it’s a fracture due to osteoporosis.

About Dr. Ethel Siris, M.D.:
Dr. Ethel S. Siris is the Director at the Toni Stabile Osteoporosis Center, Columbia University, is the Madeline C. Stabile Professor of Medicine at Columbia University, and is the immediate past-President for the National Osteoporosis Foundation. She is board certified in endocrinology and internal medicine, focusing on osteoporosis, metabolic bone disease, and bone and mineral metabolism.

Visit Dr. Siris at New York-Presbyterian Hospital

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Tags

• Bones & Joints
• Osteoporosis