curiouscoach wrote:
I have a question to colleges have the ability to test an athlete to see if they have low calcium or a greater risk of stress fractures? I mean you see them drug test, treating all types of injuries, and even surgies?
Is there a test that could predict if someone is at a greater risk?
Doctors will have blood work done to test calcium, vitamin d, and estrogen but its not something a coach or athletic dept will order like a drug test. You can also have a DEXA scan which like takes pictures of the vertebrae to test density (I have no idea what the actual science is but the results show pictures of several vertebrae with some numbers). It's all testable but limited degree to how much it actually tells you about bone health.
I had something like 6 stress fractures in 2.5 years (ending with a femoral stress fracture that had me out of commission for over a year) and when I had the blood work and the DEXA scan done (multiple times) the results came back normal.