Raloxifene and improved bone density

[Pumpkin71]

I've been taking Raloxifene for 20 years and have not seen any improvement in bone density until my last DEXA. It showed a 5.6% increase in my spine and a 3.8% increase in my right hip. There was a small but insignificant increase in my left hip. The comparisons were made to my previous DEXA which was 2 years and 4 months ago. I'm having trouble believing this; it just seems too good to be true. I've been taking more Vitamin D and eating a lot of dark leafy greens since the last DEXA, but nothing else has changed.

Has anyone else experienced improvement while taking Raloxifene ? Thanks for any comments.

[Nanaedake]

What is your vitamin D level? The vitamin D Council recommend a level around 100nmol in UK measurement. This is well above NHS supposed sufficiency.

[Met00]

Did you have the most recent scan on the same machine as previously?

[Pumpkin71 in reply to Met00]

I've had all of my scans at the same hospital, so I'm assuming it was the same machine.

[Met00 in reply to Pumpkin71]

In theory then the results should be comparable, but as Whitch says, just a different operator can come up with different results. In fact, there have been one or two small scale studies showing widely varying results from the same machine and operator on the same day!!! I was talking to a former DEXA operator yesterday, who told me there's a 10% margin of error with DEXA scanning, so you'd have to have more than a 10% difference in scores to be sure of a change!

[Bev53-SB]

I have been taking Raloxifene and showed bone density and T score improvements after 16 mths. My DEXA was on the same machine as 2yrs previously.

[Whitch]

I would be very careful about reading too much into this - I have been to,d on good authority - that these scans can be very unreliable - varies according to the machines and the operators - and big differences like this are common but not likely to be true !!

[HeronNS]

Twenty years?