Dr. Mary Claire Haver

And what has been defined as something called the musculoskeletal syndrome of menopause.

We now think that a lot of fibromyalgia, which is a condition that occurs in mostly women between the ages of 35 to 60,

What else is happening during that time?

You have to start thinking.

And so we think that a lot of women who are being diagnosed with fibromyalgia may actually just have the musculoskeletal syndrome of menopause and are having increasing inflammation in their joints, bones, and muscles.

Osteoporosis is something different.

Osteoporosis, so the rate at which we are chewing up bone

And the rate at which we lay down bones, so up until we're not sure, age somewhere between 20 and 30, we are laying down more bone naturally than we chew up.

Bone is always remodeling, right?

You're always chewing some up and laying down new bone behind it, like Pac-Man, right?

Coming out with new bone.

When we go through perimenopause, we see the greatest level of rate of bone loss, okay?

Then we even postmenopausal women.

So the biggest acceleration in your loss of bone actually starts happening in perimenopause.

For that reason, my patients are very interested in having their bone density evaluated and

at the beginning of perimenopause.

So we know what their baseline is.

Sadly, insurance will not cover this unless you have a kind of an extraordinary risk factors.

So a lot of patients will have to fight to get that covered or they're choosing to pay out of pocket to get a baseline bone density scan so they can understand, you know, where do I need to focus here?

What are my goals?