Dr. Alan Whitfield

Halloween Special: Up to 70% Off

If you're going up a stepladder this week to hang lights over your porch, read this first. I'm Dr. Alan Whitfield, 58, an orthopedic trauma surgeon. I've fixed broken hips for 26 years, and I still take the 2am calls. At my hospital, the week before Halloween has its own kind of call. It isn't the kids. Kids bounce. It's women over 60 on their own front steps at dusk. Last Saturday night I was called in 3 times. A 67-year-old who backed down her porch steps with a 20-pound pumpkin in her arms. A 71-year-old on the second rung of a stepladder with a string of orange lights. A 63-year-old who caught her heel on the broom she'd left on the top step. Two hips. One wrist. Not one of them fell far. A step. A rung. I asked each of them what she'd been told to do for her bones. All 3 said the same word. Calcium. For most of my career I was the one saying it. "Calcium. Walk more." 9 seconds at discharge. My own mother took a calcium tablet every morning for 30 years. At 79 she reached up for a casserole dish and her hip broke. I operated on her myself. The screw spun. Nobody told her. Bone is living tissue. Most of the adult skeleton is replaced about every 10 years. It's a collagen frame with mineral laid down on it, and collagen is about 90% of bone's organic framework. A calcium tablet is the mineral. That's half. What I tell my patients this week: Phone in your pocket, not on the hall table. One pumpkin at a time, one hand on the rail. Somebody else goes up the ladder. Protein first at breakfast, and ask your doctor about a bone scan. If you're the one who always does the decorations, If you've been told "calcium" and nothing else, If you stopped using the rail because it felt silly, you're the woman I meet on Halloween weekend. I didn't change my own mornings until last spring. That was Gloria, my scrub nurse on hip cases for 11 years. One morning at the scrub sink I was going through the frame and the mineral out loud, for the third case running. She held up her wet hands and looked at me over her mask. "Doc, you've read me that list three mornings in a row. I've had it in one scoop since my sister's wrist. It's called DensiaPlus." It's been in my coffee every morning since. My habit, not advice. I don't know what my next scan will say. Your doctor makes every call about what you take. DensiaPlus is 9 grams of collagen peptides with calcium, magnesium, vitamin D3, vitamin K2 (MK-7), vitamin C, zinc, copper and boron. One scoop a day, stirred into coffee, tea or water. It's the Halloween Special. Right now it's up to 70% off: buy 2 bags, get 1 free, or buy 3, get 2 free. Every bag comes with a 90-day money-back guarantee, empty or full. Count what you keep. Dr. Alan Whitfield, 58, orthopedic trauma surgeon P.S. If you take a blood thinner like warfarin, talk to your doctor before starting anything with vitamin K, this included. Calcium can affect how some medications are absorbed, so ask your doctor or pharmacist about timing. Keep taking everything you've been prescribed. P.P.S. 3 calls, 2 hips, 1 wrist. Get the broom off the steps tonight. P.P.P.S. Up to 70% off: buy 2, get 1 free, or buy 3, get 2 free. 90-day money-back guarantee, empty or full.