How Do Bones Shrink and Change Shape With Age?

[metacogitans]

In 2007 I broke my femur and had a titanium rod put in (through my knee), held in place with titanium nails.

 

I went to a "knee specialist" (yeah, I don't know, guess in Florida, which is where I happened to be at the time, they like to specialize in things like 'just knees', probably because there's so many people down there, they have to break the work load up; "Hey, if I take knee patients and you take back patients, that'll free us up for golf on Thursdays" ) recently to see if anything needed to be taken out, as I was starting to have a lot of pain in my knee where the 'nails' are. He basically told me "if you want to deal with the bills and hassle involved with surgery, I can do surgery to remove them, but it's not necessary and there's no guarantee the pain will go away."

Then I asked the important question, which no one seems to know the answer to, 'Don't bones shrink and change shape as a person gets older?' He sort of just plainly said 'Nope" like he hadn't thought about it much. "Well, your back can shrink, but that's from cartilage , not bone"

 

I'm about 95% sure bones (and the bone itself, not just cartilage), have a dynamic structure, and do indeed change shape, shrink, and even continue growing during adulthood. Although I'm guessing just overall changes in bone density and diameter are more common than bones shrinking length-wise, but that is still quite pertinent for me.

 

In my mind, I'd think that the rod would need to come out before reaching old age, or the femur might just sort of disintegrate with all the chunks clinging to the titanium rod for structure. Basically, the rod needs to come out or one day it's going to come out. I would at least suspect it to become very very painful in old age if it's left in.

 

I've heard horror stories, mostly on the internet, of people who were trying to have intramedullary rods and/or nails taken out of their femur, and large chunks of their femur broke off, which is worse than a normal fractured femur, because I'm guessing they then had to have it wired back together surgically then lay in a cast for months and months (which is what they used to do for broken femurs before inserting titanium rods).

 

The thought of that makes me not want to get it removed, but also makes me think I should get it removed sooner rather than later, as it might only get worse with age.

 

I was hoping one of you guys could tell me some of the actual terminology for bones that are shrinking or changing shape; photo evidence of bone size/shape changing would be the best. I'd maybe be able to get a more well thought-out answer next time I go to a doctor instead of just getting the run around.

 

I hope this thread doesn't seem too mundane or boring, like listening to your relative talk about their medical problems at Thanksgiving dinner. Apathy in the medical system runs deep, but let's not even get into that; let's just get in to whether or not 'bones shrink'. I mean, I can maybe deal with lessened bone density some day, as long as that is 'only painful', but if my entire femur is going to disintegrate at some age if I don't get it taken out, and cause crippling pain, you bet your ass I'm going to fight to get it taken it out now. Yes, I plan on living into my 60s, and no, I don't plan on just letting that decade be filled with pain if I could have had the same surgery I'd have to get then that I could get right now to prevent it. I will to go to court to make insurance pay for it. I'll take it all the way to the top if I have to, and let them know that one of the 80,000 'leaks' in the system is that we don't pay to have medical problems treated early, and instead wait until it becomes a larger problem and pay many times as much. And if the 'top' doesn't listen to me, I'll start a God Damn workers party - and take to the streets with hard-hitting propaganda and crowd samples of amphetamine and get everyone in the mood to seize control of the Reichstag and Blitzkrieg Poland and France, or whatever you might consider their modern-day equivalents are anyways...

Edited February 7, 2016 by metacogitans

[Carbonerd]

Bones do change. The tissue they are made of has a different kind of cells that work as builders and destroyers.

 

You can trigger changes by they way you "use" bones. You can experience shape changes in case of people with certain diseases (ex. Paget disease) or ones who do not care about their health. If you keep bad posture your bones eventually adapt in a way that's wrong for your organism.

 

Speaking of injury: http://www.rehab.research.va.gov/jour/08/45/2/pdf/Dudley-Javoroski.pdf