How a young mother developed an osteoporosis linked to pregnancy

Less than six months after giving birth to his second son, Ultima Espino used a walker.

Espino, 35, recalls the first pain of pain on her back three months after childbirth, when she released her three -year -old son from the car. She thought she had changed it.

“I felt like I had pulled a muscle so seriously that every hour of each day, this pain agreed,” Espino told Business Insider.

It was not until months later – after having traveled several doctors’ firms – that she learned that she had in fact several bone fractures in her spine, a rare syndrome triggered by breastfeeding.

Espino was confused. She was very active throughout her two pregnancies, according to Orangetheory lessons. She worked throughout her first pregnancy – her water broke while she was exercising – but she had to stop during her second when she felt joint pain two months before her deadline.

“I just made him hear” most women do not work so far in pregnancy “,” she said. After giving birth, Espino felt good to the back incident. In a few months, the pain became so serious that it started to wear a background recommended by an interventional doctor of the spine and pain. Finally, when she had trouble walking, her husband suggested buying a walker.

The cause turned out to be Osteoporosis, a disease most associated with menopausal women.

Atrocious pain unanswered

At the beginning, Espino, who works as principal director of sports partnerships in Orlando Health, thought that she had a common sporting and postpartum problem: a weakened nucleus. She made an appointment with a physiotherapist from the pelvic floor.

As she saw the PT, her pain was much more serious. “I couldn’t put pants without crying,” she said. The PT reiterated that its pain was not linked to its heart. “They are like,” you belong elsewhere “,” said Espino. “It is certainly not there.”

His pain has accelerated for months, without clear answers. She couldn’t put her newborn without first needing to rest her forearms on each side of the cradle. Nor could she do it without “pain groan”.

Putting the car seat in and out of the car was even more difficult. Once, when she tried to remove the car seat with her baby still in it, she still felt the pain and the seat started to fall. A father ran to take the headquarters of Tent.

It was then that Espino began to realize that there were more important problems in addition to a muscle drawn or adjusted behind. Her husband, concerned about her pain, suggested that they make her a walker for the moment. Once she did it, it helped her go from one end to the home “without feeling as if I was going to break”.

The real awakening arrived one morning, while Espino already felt a lot of pain. She helped her eldest son dress for school. Suddenly, she felt a sneezing coming.

“My whole body knew that it was not going well,” she said.

The pain was “out of the park” the worst she had felt in her life, more debilitating than long hours of work. “I had the impression that my spine was separated,” she said.

A moment of diagnosis “AHA”

Espino was precipitated at the Orlando Health Jewel Orthopdic Institute and obtained an MRI. She learned that she had four compression fractures in her spine.

It was immediately sent for tests, from the analysis of calcium to ultrasounds. A dexa scan, which measures muscle and bone mass, finally confirmed that it had osteoporosis – although it is not yet clear how or why.

We spoke to one of the doctors of Espino: Dr. Christine Jablonski, specializing in bone health and orthopedics in Orlando Health. She suspected that Espino, whose mother also received a diagnosis of osteoporosis at a young age by Jablonski, could have a rare form of osteoporosis linked to lactation. In the two pregnancies, Espino had an overproduction of milk, which could cause a loss of calcium. When the body cannot rebound by overproduction, this can cause osteoporosis.

“It is not very common and I had not seen it before, but I suspected that it was the cause of the state of Ultima,” Jablonski told Business Insider.

At that time, Jablonski was part of the annual interdisciplinary symposium on osteoporosis in Washington, DC, when one of the speakers gave a conference on pregnancy and osteoporosis associated with lactation (PLO). After the presentation, she rushed to the speaker and shared the symptoms of Espino. He confirmed that it looked like Plo.

From there, she was able to reconstruct what happened: Espino was genetically predisposed to develop osteoporosis. Because she had two close pregnancies with each other – at 30 and 33 – and had an overproduction of milk, it created a “perfect storm” to develop osteoporosis, said Espino.

Parenting during recovery

Espino was invited to stop breastfeeding her son to brake her loss of calcium. Emotionally, it was a difficult rule to follow: her first son did not locked, and she liked the link that she felt breasting her second. She was also discouraged to get pregnant again, because it could even exacerbate her osteoporosis.

“We were probably planning with two, but to say, at the height of pain, that you should probably not carry another baby and stop breastfeeding, it was super hard,” she said.

In the past year, Espino has received bone growth injections and taken calcium supplements. During the first six months of treatment, its bone density increased by 15% and one of its compression fractures healed. Although her pain has become less constant, she has no difficult calendar because she will be painless.

However, she saw small improvements in her quality of life. She can hold her year and bend down to play with her four -year -old son.

In the end, she is happy to have asked for medical help and wishes more mothers to do the same, even if her condition is very rare. “Especially as mothers, we really take it all and say:” We know that these years will be difficult “,” she said. “If mom does not take care of herself, no one else can.”