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Old 09-18-2018, 02:18 PM
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GravyBaby GravyBaby is offline
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Default Dexa not always accurate or reliable

Hi all,

I had a conversation with Dr. Rolando Garcia, as well as a personal friend who is a retired equine veterinarian of many years, about my DEXA results and DEXA in general.

At my follow-up meeting with Dr. Garcia, he came in the exam room perplexed at what he referred to as a statistical impossibility. After reviewing my DEXA scan results, he went on to explain that including myself and the two other most recent young men that he had examined under 40 years of age, all fell into the osteopenic category on our DEXA scans.

As we spoke about it, it was revealed that we all had our scans done at the same imaging location. The possibility and probability that either the machine was malfunctioning or miscalibrated became apparent.

Fortunately, my supposed osteopenia was borderline at best, at what he quoted as a 1.1.

In an occasion after that, a veterinarian friend of mine explained that the lack of accurate results regarding DEXA scans in horses proved them unreliable for him to to base surgical decisions on. He went on to say that he generally disregarded DEXA findings throughout his career, unless some type of extreme result was found.

It is important to note that he had the opportunity of working with racing horses in some of the largest and most wealthy stables in the world and had access to cutting edge technology most of the time. He said in the equine world, because racing horses are sometimes world millions or tens of millions of dollars, there is no spared expense and horses can receive better care than most humans.

In any case, it sounds like DEXA scans, while not being completely reliable on accurate findings, can be relied upon to determine extreme conditions of osteoporosis or conditions less common, like osteopetrosis.
__________________
2001 - Pulled off monkey bars, landed directly on coccyx.
2006 - Sports injury that made it worse.
2016 - Multiple instances of paralyzing low-back pain.
2017 - Blew out my back on leg-press. MRI showed L5-S-1 disc herniation and grade 1 retrolisthesis.
2018 - Successful ADR surgery with Dr. Rolando Garcia using the Activ-L implant.
2019 - In physical therapy for burning in feet, L4-L5 diffuse disc bulge and SI joint pain.
2020 - Getting better with one-on-one PT.

30 - Male - American
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