Fifteen months, 11 doctors and over a dozen tests and scans later, I still have no idea how to treat it

On 16 June 2023, I got my first DEXA scan. I was 57. Three hours later, a rogue driver plowed his car into mine and shattered my wrist in three places.

Fifty-seven is relatively young for a DEXA – or dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry – scan, which measures bone density, or the amount of calcium and minerals in your bones. The CDC recommends them for women 65 and over, but while interviewing Joanna Strober, CEO of Midi Health, a virtual care clinic for those in perimenopause and menopause, she had urged me to get one sooner. Strober had become alarmed by how many of their fiftysomething patients were finding that they had the bones of an octogenarian.