They didn’t notice it right away.
When Kimberley Seldon’s mother suffered her first fracture — to her wrist — she didn’t think anything of it.
“She didn’t know how she’d done it,” the celebrity interior designer with Cityline told Metro Ottawa recently. “The doctor wasn’t necessarily in tune with osteoporosis.”
A while later, Seldon’s mother, Ethel, suffered a fracture to her spine, and another, until her spine was “a series of painful breaks.
“You can’t go out anywhere,” said Seldon. “You can’t even make a car trip to the store.”
Her mother passed away, after “the disease took away her ability to live and our ability to spend quality time with her,” she said.
Now a spokeswoman for Osteoporosis Awareness Month, Seldon is coming to Ottawa this month to reach out to younger people.
“I want them to take control of their health,” she said. “I don’t think in your 30s is too young to speak to your doctor, and in your 40s you must speak to a physician. I have a friend who has osteoporosis. She’s 28 years old. It’s not impossible that it happens to someone who is young. And men also get osteoporosis.”
It affects more than two million Canadians a year, Seldon said. “A lot of people think that it’s normal to break bones as you age, but it’s not,” she said. “It’s better to talk about it early, and never experience the loss of independence that comes with bone fractures.”
