Fractures warn of time for bone scan

By KATHERINE HOBY

In February last year Rennie Urquhart broke his toe.

He dropped a piece of heavy wood on it at his home in Wellsford, and did not attach any special significance to the accident.

It was, in fact, the first sign that the generally fit and healthy 59-year-old had osteoporosis.

The very next day Mr Urquhart suffered an electric shock which threw him to the floor, breaking his femur (thigh bone), the largest bone in his body.

Again there was nothing that gave reason to suspect he had weak bones, though he thought it astounding he had broken a major bone so easily.

Five months later, a more definite clue emerged.

Mr Urquhart was reaching into the back seat of his car when his finger caught in the seat cover and "snapped."

"I thought at the time that break happened too easily," he said.

For some time he had known that there was something not right.

It took him until December to go to a chiropractor after suffering extreme back pain.

The cause was two crushed vertebrae and he finally had the diagnosis he needed - osteoporosis.

When he went for a bone density scan, a technician told him his reading was "the worst she had seen."

He is on morphine day and night, and now strongly advocates early bone scans for those who suffer fractures in minor accidents.

He admitted he was one of those who thought osteoporosis happened only to elderly women.

"If I had known that it could possibly happen to me I would have gone for tests much earlier. I was ignorant as," he said.

"If hearing my story can help somebody get to it earlier that has to be good news."