Last November two scary new warnings were added to Prolia -- one of those bone drugs.

One reads like this: "In post-marketing experience, severe and occasionally incapacitating bone, joint and/or muscle pain has been reported."

The second says that patients have suffered severe allergic reactions to Prolia, including ones bad enough to be fatal.

So how did millions of women get that osteoporosis diagnosis? How did they get started on a lifetime of taking these horribly dangerous meds?

It all begins with a "gateway" test. One that all women over 65 -- and even some younger -- are told they must take.

And then take it again every two years.

But this common procedure is filled with problems, errors and mistakes. The results are totally unreliable -- what it shows about your bones one day could very well be different the next.

That's how just three little letters -- DXA -- can end up spelling DISASTER.

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A bad break
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No one loves the DXA scan (sometimes called DEXA) more than Big Pharma does.

If your DXA shows your T score is low -- a few points lower than a healthy woman in her 30s -- well then it's time to get going on the bone drugs.

The DXA scan hit the scene in 1994 -- as a way to predict your future of breaking a bone.

And experts say it's just about the most unreliable medical test you can get.

This scanner calculates bone minerals -- namely calcium -- by hitting your bones with an x-ray beam and measuring the darkness of the shadow that's cast. Then it calculates your T score based on that estimate.

And lots of things can -- and do -- go wrong with it.

For one, smaller bones show a lighter shadow, and the machine will "say" you have less calcium, and that means a low T score.

Now that's precision!

But about all this test can predict with any accuracy is that you do have bones. The rest is a big crapshoot.

And if you've already had one, or more, any further testing done on a scanner from a different manufacturer, or even the same brand at a different doctor's office, can have wildly different results.

Here's just how crazy this test is:
Different brands of scanners can give results that vary as much as 20 percent. And that can make the whole test meaningless as bone changes are measured in very, very, small numbers.
These devices work like Google does -- with something called an algorithm -- programmed instructions that calculate a result. And, like Google's algorithm, the one your T score is based on is kept a trade secret -- even from the doctors who use it!
You can get a different result each time due to seemingly small things, such as the x-ray technician's technique, the way you lay on the table or even the kind of clothes you're wearing.
Now, as I said, when your T score is a bit below a 30-something, that's when the Rx pad comes out, and the bone drugs, like Boneva or Prolia are prescribed.

And these aren't just any drugs, but ones that can cause fractures, not to mention cancer, heart inflammation, bone death, and low calcium levels that can be life-threatening.

And of course, your doctor will want to see if those drugs are "working." So he'll order one of these DXA scans every 2 years -- or less.

But he won't know that for a while.

You see, the DXA scan is so unreliable that experts say it takes around 10 years to overcome the test's margin of error to find out if the drug is even doing anything for you!

So don't subject yourself to all the worry and false results this test can cause, as well as the risky drugs it can get you going on.

What you really need to do instead is keep your bones strong in the first place. And there are some simple ways to do that. Ways that really work!

Regularly taking vitamin D is a very important one. Another is taking vitamin K supplements made from natto or nattokinase. Vitamin K works synergistically with D to protect bones. And adding K is especially important if you're taking calcium.

And ditch the DXA scam -- I mean scan.