Osteoporosis Online Support Community, hosted by Inspire, brings people with and affected by osteoporosis together online to share experiences and provide support for one another. Now with more than 68,000 members, Osteoporosis Online Support Community is a great source of support and a channel to learn more about living with the disease.
Explore and Join BHOF’s Community NowThe online community includes blogs, individual web pages, discussions, message boards and more. One of the ways members can expand their social network within the community is by creating a personal profile. To help people find and connect with others in similar situations, Osteoporosis Online Support Community links members by gender,Ā topics ofĀ interest and where they live.The discussions are categorized by topic, making it easy for members to find topics that interest them.
Because health issues are private, security measures have been put in place to ensure that members have control over their personal information, such as hiding their full name and email address from others. To prevent inappropriate content, discussions are moderated and there is a community help desk.
Participation is open to people concerned about their bone health, patients with osteoporosis, caregivers, family members and health professionals.
Sign up today ā itās free to join.Ā Once youāre a member of the online community, you can start meeting new people, following popular discussions, joining discussions on topics of interest and sharing information youād like to pass along to others.
Thanks to our Amazing Volunteer Moderators
BHOF appreciates our volunteer moderators for dedicating their time and expertise to answer questions and provide support to members of the Inspire online support community. Meet and learn more about our volunteer moderators below.
Pamela Flores
Pam is a patient educator and digital health writer who has worked for Remedy Health Media on their osteoporosis web site since 2008.Ā Pam is also a volunteer moderator with the Bone Health & Osteoporosis Foundation Inspire online community and reaches out to those with osteoporosis who need help and support navigating it at many ages and stages of life.
Pam started out with established osteoporosis, which was detected at age 32, and improved her bone mass greatly with an osteoporosis medication, diet, supplements and exercises.Ā She has had five fragility fractures and one major impact fracture of the spine.
Pam graduated from the University of West Los Angeles School of Law in their Paralegal program and received a Litigation Specialist Certificate from the same university. She has worked at various law firms in the Southern California area.
Pam likes to keep up on new treatments by researching osteoporosis through clinical trials and medical articles from many bone and mineral metabolism and osteoporosis associations and hopes that her work with the Inspire/BHOF community will bring assistance to the newly diagnosed, as well as to patients who are already in the process of finding and implementing treatments for bone loss.
Lawrence Jankowski, CBDT
Larry is the chief clinical and research DXA technologist for Illinois Bone and Joint Institute, a 90 plus physician multi-specialty practice with a dozen locations in Chicago and the surrounding suburbs. He started clinical imaging as a nuclear medicine technologist in 1978 and has performed bone mineral density testing since 1986 using SPA and DPA.
Larry was certified by the International Society for Clinical Densitometry (ISCD) as a Certified Densitometry Technologist in 1995 and as a Certified Bone Densitometry Technologist in 2009. He is an instructor for the ISCD/International Osteoporosis Foundation (IOF) bone densitometry courses held worldwide and has been an ISCD instructor for more than 15 years. Larry has presented posters at the American Association of Orthopaedic Surgeons, the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research, ISCD and BHOF and has co-authored a number of journal articles.
In addition to his clinical and research duties, Larry was the first technologist elected to the ISCD Board of Trustees and served as its first non-physician treasurer from 1997-2001, a position he held twice.Ā He has also served on several ISCD Position Development Conference expert panels and working groups and is a member of the ISCD Facility Accreditation Council.Ā He also volunteers as a moderator for the BHOF/Inspire Osteoporosis online support community.
When not at work, Larry enjoys fishing, carpentry and basic automobile maintenance. He also enjoys being a husband to his wife of 32 years and his most recent role as a grandfather.
Sarah Purcell
Sarah Purcell is a mother,Ā grandmother and learner.Ā Sarah’s journey through menopause and osteoporosis diagnosis in 2016Ā guided her to support women across the globe with healthy and empowered aging.Ā Sarah is a movement teacher whose work includes Pilates and yoga certifications as well as functional movement and strength training.
Sarah leads an online Bone Boot Camp, an at-home strength training program for women with low bone density.Ā She also has a membership program, the “Short & Sweet Strength Workout for Osteoporosis,” which is a comprehensive movement optimizer. One of the unique features of Sarah’s work is that every movement program is rooted in the breath as the foundation.Ā This work is different in that the goal is to not only get stronger, but to relieve, reduce and remove signals of pelvic floor dysfunction as well as recurring aches and pains as we age. Sarah’s passion is to help women like herself who are dealing with a low bone density diagnosis and are seeking natural pathways to live a full and active life.
Burta Guray Samli
Burta is originally from Izmir, Turkey. After graduating from the Middle East Technical University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Statistics, she worked as a banker for 11 years in Turkey, Switzerland and the United Kingdom until 2007.
She has lived in the United States since 2011. Burta has always been passionate about health and alternative medicine. She received a āAmerican Association of Drugless Practitionersā certificate from the Institute of Integrative Nutrition in 2012. In addition, she became a clinical Eden Energy Medicine practitioner in 2017 and an Eden Energy Medicine certified teacher in 2016.
In 2018, Burta was diagnosed with osteoporosis and has been managing her condition with good care thanks to the help of medical providers. She also does her best with physical therapy, walks regularly and follows a good, healthy diet.
Burtaās goal is to help others to better their health through awareness and education. She strongly believes that we will always be stronger together and our overall health can improve tremendously with food, spirituality, physical fitness and our day-to-day schedule and lifestyle changes.