Osteoporosis – Julio Alcalá, XR Imaging
/in Podcast/by dmiddaughDr. David
Hey there El Paso! Welcome to the show. Thank you so much for joining us. I've got an awesome interview lined up for you today. My name again is Dr. David Middaugh, physical therapists. I'm the owner of El Paso Manual Physical Therapy. And I've got Julio Alcalá with me. Julio is the owner of XR imaging.
I've known him for years now. He's fantastic at what he does, probably one of the best around. He is an expert, X-ray technologists. He's got 16 years of experience. And I'll let him tell you more about all the stuff that he does and where he went to school and all that. But just before we get on the show, we're going to focus on our topic today, what Julio is really going to talking about his osteoporosis, and I'll let him go into the definition of it and in a related condition called osteopenia, and he'll tell you some interesting facts about those conditions.
But if you've got osteoporosis, or osteopenia, you definitely want to tune in to every word that Julio has to say. You might even want to give him a call, and work with him so that you can help fix that problem. Which is very fixable. A lot of people don't think that it is. Even in the medical field, they think that you're going to have it for the rest of your life, but that's just not the case. You can improve if you do the right things and get the right kind of help. So without any more pauses here. Let's talk to Julio, so Julio, welcome to the show.
Julio Alcalá
Thank you. Thank you, David. Thank you for inviting me. I'm glad to be here on your show and ready to share nice and valuable information with your listeners here.
Dr. David
Awesome. I'm glad to have you. Well, let's start by getting to know you a little bit better. I know you decently well, but let's hear about where you're from, and where you went to school. How did you get into this field?
Julio Alcalá
Well, a little bit of a story about myself. I always say they brought me here to the states, right? I was a teenager I came to El Paso when I was 14 years old, and I went to Eastwood High School. So for those listeners out there, you know that are troopers. Once a trooper always a trooper, that's what they say back then, in Eastwood?
Then after that I went to EPCC, and I enrolled in the X-ray program at a EPCC. Throwing a little commercial there. But very intense and very high level of training, that they have those guys there on the EPCC. So I became an X-ray technologist back in 2003. And I started working in our local places here, in different hospitals and clinics. Back in 2009, I decided to further my education in radiology. So, I went and got my bachelor's degree in radiology science.
I had the intention to become a radiologist assistant, but then I finished my bachelor's degree and, you know, life happens. So then now I find myself owning an imaging center and providing X-ray services for the community here in El Paso. So that's how I how evolved here in this nice community.
Dr. David
Yeah, El Paso is a nice place. Well, tell us more about your company XR Imaging. Can you tell us where it's at and give us more information about it, please?
Julio Alcalá
Yeah, XR Imaging. It's a diagnostic imaging center, it's located in the east side of El Paso. What we do there is, that we primarily offer very affordable and quality X-ray services, ultrasound services, and bone density scans as well.
So we are primarily targeting those individuals that are tired of the conventional diagnostic services, right? Where you go there and you're dealing with insurances, they give you an appointment, per se 10 in the morning, you get seen at 11 in the morning, so you're there in a large waiting area and wait. Maybe listening to other people's stories and whatnot right.
But anyway, so, we provide X-ray services, ultrasounds, bone densities, and we are trying to improve the patient care and patient satisfaction by offering all of our clients and patients a one-to-one interaction with a technologist, and no waiting time.
We're very good on the time that we tell you that you're going to be seen. That's when you get seen. It's a nice comfortable setting. And we offer pretty much every diagnostic will do, right? Data quality and fast results to your providers.
Dr. David
Very nice. Awesome. And what's something that's particularly unique about your company?
Julio Alcalá
What is unique about XR Imaging is that we do we do offer that one-to-one interaction with patients. So the moment that you get there, you are going to be greeted nicely. We value your time, we know that for most individuals, they're taking time off from work, they have family to attend to. So we welcome you nicely. We take care of you on time, and one other very important aspect of our practices is that we like to educate patients.
You're not going to be one more number, one more patient, were you go there, and we take a picture and then you're out. We are going to take the time to do a very quality study, show you, and educate you through the images.
Now, we don't diagnose there, because that's not our job. That's the doctor's job. But we are very good at showing you the images and identifying different aspects of your anatomy. If you have any questions regarding areas where it hurts the most, or you have concerns about, we will show you that we are getting a quality picture of the area, making sure that the study is going to be complete for the radiologist to do a very precise diagnosis.
We do take that time per patient, and we allocated this time, or playing with logistics, to make sure that we don't go on and make this a long, long, long visit. It's effective timing. Educational timing in a nice comfortable setting.
Dr. David
That's awesome. So you actually get to show your clients their images, or whatever it is that they're getting scanned by you?
Julio Alcalá
Yes definitely. So, we work with digital imaging. So, the moment that I take an X-ray the moment that Deseret does the ultrasound, the images are there in a digital format. So we show them to you. Also with these two processes, screenings, the moment that I finished scanning the lumbar spine, the hip, the image is there available for you to see, if you require, or you want to have records of these images.
After the radiologist has the data and completed report, we can gladly provide up either a PDF file, or just a digital format. We can burn a CD you can take your images with you. The patient has access to see their images at any given point.
Dr. David
That's really cool because I knew, as a physical therapist, we get people here in the office all the time, that they had x-rays, or an MRI, or whatever imaging done, and they've never seen them before. They just didn't. Nobody showed it to them. They saw the doctor, but the doctor just told them, hey, you have arthritis, or you have this whatever problem it is. But there's something about that individual just being able to see all the imaging and all the stuff that was done. Because if they can, then they have a visualization for what's going on with their problem, why they have their issue, that's really cool that you give them that opportunity.
Julio Alcalá
And then to elaborate a little bit more, it's a very touchy subject, because in school we are taught not to, obviously as x-ray technologist, we are not be able to, or we should not be telling them what the patient has. Like diagnosing the person. That's the doctor's job.
But most technologists are afraid to show the images to the patient because the patient's will then ask that question, what do I have? Do I have a fracture, or have these conditiones or whatever pathology it is. But what we do is that we want to educate you. So we can show you the picture. And if there's any specific area that you're concerned, we will illustrate this area to you. So that when you go to your doctor, and you have questions for your doctor. You can say I got to see the X rays, and I thought, I saw this area right here. Did you see the same tingling on the images?
Because most doctors will get a radiologist report, and then tell you essentially what he saw on the paper, without even seeing the pictures. So then by the patient, being educated, and having those questions to the doctor, you just improve patient care. I mean, we're just humans the doctor can make a mistake as well. I know that a lot of doctors out they don't accept that, but we're just humans. But it's also the patient's responsibility to ask questions that pertain challenge that diagnosis and ask why. And then seek for other alternatives of course, right?
Dr. David
So that they are in a better position to win so that when they get to the doctor's visit, they're better educated about it, and they can ask better questions. That's awesome. That's so cool, powerful stuff. Let's get into talking about osteoporosis. So what got you interested in osteoporosis?
Julio Alcalá
Well, it's one of these conditions that presents no symptoms. So truly, there is a, well, let me throw this statistic out there, one third of the female population here in the United States, that's one out of three, right? Females over the age of 50 will suffer or will develop osteoporosis. So the problem here is that we don't know when. We don't know if it's going to be at 50, 55, 60, 75 right. So then, osteoporosis, has no symptoms. I got very interested on doing osteoporosis screening, because throughout my usual experience in doing X-rays and doing bone density tests, I came across with high volume profile of individuals, female the most, were they just… I don't know if I'm using the right word, but the cane away, right?
I mean, they don't know they have osteoporosis. I get to see how bad their bones are internally, and for the most part, they pretty much ignore it most of their adulthood, through their adult life. They didn't know they had this. So I kept just asking myself this. I mean, we should have a more proactive approach to help those individuals. Because at 65, 75 it's already too late. You can definitely do something. And it's a very simple test. It's a very simple screening test that it can definitely improve your quality of life.
Dr. David
Yeah. Oh, it's so simple. It's so fast. It's very quick and you get tons of information right away. Well, for those of the listeners out there that maybe don't fully understand what osteoporosis is, could you just in simple terms, define it for us?
Julio Alcalá
Yes. So osteoporosis is a condition that affects your bones, and it affects the bones by making them very, very weak in the inside. So if you go to any place they should actually, they're going to take a picture of the outside of the bone. What we refer to as the cortex of the bone, and with this radiograph, with this picture, we can determine fractures, locations and things like that. But we cannot diagnose osteoporosis based on a simple radiograph.
Now, if osteoporosis that it's advanced, that means if the bone is drastically weak, then at that point, we can see it on a radiograph. But why would you want to wait right? Why would you want to wait just to go with a radiograph to diagnosis osteoporosis? This is why technology like the DEXA scan, DEXA is an acronym for a very fancy words, Dual Energy X-ray Photometry. So, we just call it DEXA, and it's x-rays as well, but DEXA can measure inside the bone, rather than just taking a picture of the outside of the cortex, or outside of the bone.
So then measuring the inside of the bone will let us know at any given, age how strong or weak your bones are. If your bones are weak, then we need to rely on these technologies to find out how weak they are. If you could be on the phase before osteoporosis wishes to osteopenia, or osteoporosis. Think about osteopenia as the phase before osteoporosis, when we start noticing a decrease in bone density. But it's a good time for you to take action to prevent osteoporosis.
And in just talking a little bit more into it, we run with a system of a score, and most are very healthy individual at 30 years old, he is going to have a score of zero. Okay? So then we're going to start comparing this score to these particular individuals. So if your score is anywhere, lower than 2.5 points in this score system, that we call t-score, you're going to be diagnosed with osteoporosis.
Anything between zero and negative one, you're going to be diagnosed with osteoporosis. But think about this, right? If you are diagnosed with osteopenia, you're 40-45 right? You have at least a decade, maybe two decades to do something to prevent osteoporosis and essentially improve your quality of life as you age.
Dr. David
Oh, man. So, my takeaways from that are, that osteoporosis, it doesn't hurt, it decays the bones from the inside out, and you probably won't even see much happen on the outside, you have to look at the inside. It's the density of the bones. And the lower the density, the worse your score. Once it gets to a certain point, then that's the threshold of where they call it osteoporosis.
Julio Alcalá
That's exactly what it is.
Dr. David
tends to affect women 50
Julio Alcalá
Right. Yes. So then the National Osteoporosis foundation recommends osteoporosis screening for all females over the age of 50. But that's a recommendation. Now, we do have here at XR Imaging on authorization by the Texas Department of Health to do self-refer osteoporosis screening. So you don’t have to go to your doctor and ask him “doctor I want to check my bones.” You now can do it on your own.
So then you're 40-45 you want to buy some time, you just want to make sure, if you're listening, if you're a female right before, pre-menopause or menopause, or you're through menopause. That will be a good point for you to start thinking about “What about my bones?”
Because you mentioned something very important. Osteoporosis has no symptoms and it’s not going to hurt. Most individuals say oh my bones hurt, or my joints, or my back, right? And they might confuse this pain with weak bonds. But that is not the case. There are no nerves inside the bones to trigger a pain effect, to let us know okay your bones are weak right?
So then we rely on technology like DEXA to truly measure these values these bones. But in being proactive on your health. If you scan yourself with a suprosis of screaming at early age, you're even better, right?
You don't have to wait for your doctor to request this. It is pretty much informing the public that you have the right to be practical with your own health. And this is primarily going to affect females. And definitely just because of changes in hormones and through menopause, any deviation of estrogen is going to, and we have other risk factors, but primarily the estrogen. As you decrease estrogen, you increase the risk of developing osteoporosis.
Dr. David
So that's probably especially helpful at going in before 50. If you're female, if like your mom or your grandma, or other people in your family have known osteoporosis, that they've been diagnosed with osteoporosis, then that's probably somebody who should say, hey, maybe I should go get checked out in my 40s I should probably go take advantage of this ability to go see somebody like you and get scanned now for osteoporosis so that they can be prepared for the future.
That's cool. So let's talk about just kind of a tangent here. What could happen to somebody that has progressive osteoporosis? What are the problems we'll run into? Because if it doesn't hurt, they're not going to know that they have it necessarily. They might have back pain, hip pain or other stuff, but that's more related to their joints or muscles, or something else, but the inside of the bones, what you're saying is not going to hurt. But let's say that osteoporosis keeps getting worse. What could happen?
Julio Alcalá
So worst case scenario, right? If you are having a fracture on your spine, or you fracture your hip. So we know, by statistics, that those hip fractures primarily are quite dangerous. There's a highest that this is for individuals who broken a huge danger. They're up in the hospital and they don't make it. You know, it's drastic, the numbers are drastic.
So then who might suffer from a hip fracture? We know that by accident most people can, any type of trauma, but individuals with weak bones, and we're talking about the elder here. They're taking a shower, they slip, and they fall. If they have weak bones guess what, either the back, or the hip is going to be one of the areas that fractures.
We see a lot of fractures also on the wrist, because just by tendency landing ourselves, we put our hands out. But, the one of most concern is going to be spine fractures, and hip fractures. So then, as we age, we want to age with a good quality of life. We want to be doing things, enjoying our grandsons, enjoying those, good days, be walking
Dr. David
Going on a vacation, walk around….
Julio Alcalá
So then, what we want is to prevent that from happening, right? Making sure that the public here understands that osteoporosis is truly a thing to consider. And it’s quite easy to diagnose and to prevent. It is very hard, very hard to early age, as a diagnosis to process to recover from it. So, the younger you are, the better you are, you will be proactive and then you just pretty much improving the outcome towards the, you're late years, I guess I shouldn't put it like that.
Dr. David
And just to give you, the listeners a perspective, from the physical therapy side. Because I see people that have had hip fractures, and spine fractures and that kind of thing. Rehabbing and recovering the strength and mobility and the ability to walk and do normal life things sucks. It's terrible. And you know, a lot of these people have had a hip replacement because they couldn't salvage the hip bones.
Some will get a pin surgically put in to stabilize the fracture in their hip, and their life changes dramatically. So yeah, many of them passed away. Unfortunately, because of all the changes that happened after breaking a hip or fracture in the spine. But if they lived, usually they're attached to a walker, or a cane for the rest of their life. And people hate having to carry a walk around.
You have to put it in the trunk of your car whenever you leave. It gets caught on things it it's miserable. The best is, if you can just have your own body, and not have to carry any sort of walker or cane and get around and do whatever you want. And yeah even better, like you said, quality of life. Being able to say I'm going to get on the floor and play with my grandkids and not be afraid that I'm going to injure myself for that, or that dealt with this fracture that I got, you know, years back or last year, and it can't get I can't do that anymore.
Okay. So, yeah, the dealing with the problems of osteoporosis is not fun, it's just that it happens suddenly. And it is terrible as it comes. But let's talk about the other end of that. What could be done to prevent it from getting worse or maybe even improve it?
Julio Alcalá
So, in understanding first the risk factor, so we classify them by control risk factors and uncontrolled risk factors, right. So, suddenly being controlled or uncontrolled receptors will be gender, age, and genetics. So then, I mean, right there out of the bat, females will have. So osteoporosis is going to by genetics is going to target females over the age of 50, they cannot control this, and then like you mentioned, before you know if your parents your grandparents had osteoporosis, that doesn't mean that you will have it, but the risk increases right?
So if you cannot control the age, you cannot control your hormones as to going through menopause. The only thing that you can control it's be proactive right? Go get checked, call me if you want. If you're listening to this right now, just give me a phone call 915-613-2748 we'll help you with a simple osteoporosis screening. It's a very simple test that brings a lot of value. You want to know if your bones are strong, to be conscious, be aware of this and enjoy your life, and if they're not, take it as it is, with the attitude of improving and then we will offer you a second scan.
We will refer you with the specialist that we you know can help you to improve your bone density. Then you'll come back six months, two months to do another scan and see how you're improving. But that's essentially a way of contemplating these now excluding these uncontrolled risk factors because you cannot control it, right?
We know that sedentary individuals who are more prone to develop osteoporosis. The bones, we call this process osteogenesis. So it's like, generating new bone or the beginning of building more, right? So then the cells to Genesis process gets stimulated when there's high impact on the bone. So we know that individuals who practice high impact exercises or resistance training, they do better, they minimize the risk of developing osteoporosis.
So if you're young, you are active in the gym that's going to be benefit for you, in preventing developing osteoporosis. We also know that very acidic drinks such as Coke, excessive coffee, many soft drinks obviously, that carry a lot of the, the pH is very acidic, it will start affecting on the long run. I mean, I told this one time, and then the patient told me, what do you mean if I just drink one cup of coffee? I'm like, No, no, I didn't say that. Enjoy your coffee, right? But in the excess on the long term is going to have an impact.
Dr. David
I'm putting my coffee down.
Julio Alcalá
I love coffee. So I just, you know, being aware of the, you know, be putting myself on that on that limitation. Be cautious when I'm doing
Dr. David
drink water instead.
Julio Alcalá
No, no, but yeah. So then think about these little things that you can do in early age, right? What's your soft drinks, making sure that you're not drinking too much acidic, or high acidic drink? Then be active, not necessarily cardio, okay, a lot of people think just by going and walking around. So in fact, there's this very interesting report in the society that came in 2007 in UCLA, it was a short, it was only 40 individual, with certain characteristics, but they sleeting in groups of 20. Okay.
The one group of 20 patients was pure females, over the age of 50. They had them do cardio, just pure cardio exercise, and then they were tracking how their density will progress within 24 months. And then the other 20 deep resistance. Well those that the resistance and high impact, develop or maintain better bone density compared to the ones that were just doing cardio, okay. So then the that type of exercise is also very important.
Dr. David
And just to speak to it from a physical therapist standpoint. A lot of people, as they say, if you're 50 and up, people tend to have back pain, or hip pain or things hurts, and then having this understanding of “Alright, well, I got to go do some sort of resistance training that might mean weightlifting or something else.” It depends on what the individual likes to do that. So we guide them towards just how to do it in a way that's helpful for them.
If they're running into back pain or hip pain, and the exercise they want to do, then talking to somebody like me is a huge benefit so that physical therapists can guide them on the right exercises, and it might be that they're not ready to lift weights today, they need to do some other stuff definitely leading up to it so that they then can begin to hit the weights a little bit harder and be safe about it and not get injured some other way.
But it's true. We see so many clients here that they end up going to go to weight training and the way I tell people is, just like you get calluses on your hands from working with your hands a lot, or other tissues respond, similarly, our muscles will get thicker, our tendons will get thicker, and our bones get more dense. It's just a natural response of our bodies have to extra forces you put on them. But what I see from our clients is it's uncomfortable to lift weights and push yourself too hard. It's kind of easy and very gratifying to get on the treadmill, or the bike, or whatever and say I burned 500 calories. I feel good about myself. And you don't get the same kind of response when you lift the weights. It's like Well, I don't know how many calories are burned and if you actually look it up, it's not that many calories, but the benefit that you don't feel right then in there is that your bones get stronger, and your muscles get stronger and all that.
Julio Alcalá
This is one of the things I encourage most individuals, because they go there and they express, “I am in pain” or “My back hurts” or “My joints hurt”, right? It's going to be impossible for me to do exercise, but they don't realize that a physical therapist it's science. You guys, you doctors, you go through school, you get a very, very specific training on how the body works and ways to, what to do to supplement for a specific type of movement or exercise. So, I understand. Pain is pain, and it could be relative from patient to patient, but seeking help is…. You need to decide whether you truly need the help, and then seek individuals like you.
When I improve my health, I know I'm hurting, but yet I know I need to do something, some type of movement. I want to go to the specialty school who are the specialties that will tell me what movements to do, how to do them and my body mechanics. With all due respect your primary doctor, more than likely, is not going to do it. So then seek individual help like physical therapy.
Dr. David
Yeah, doctors tend to be specialists in medicine, and everybody in the field kind of has their own specialty and so, so yeah, just find the right person for the problem that you are facing, and that's where you're going to find the best help. So let's talk about a specific client of yours, that you can think of, that had osteoporosis and has maybe had a good outcome. Do you have anybody like this?
Julio Alcalá
Yes, so I have this patient through the self-referral program. This patient very, very proactive, very motivated to improve her health. So she goes there, she was referred by her primary doctor, we ended up doing just the osteoporosis screening. So it turns out that she had osteoporosis but very severe. Now, you will see this patient walking normal, right? I mean, she's just fine. She wasn't complaining but she should calls the office back a couple of weeks later and she says “ i was there, I followed up with my doctor, they diagnosed me with osteoporosis, they put me on these medication, but I want to do something extra to improve my health. Is there any recommendation? We talked about some things when I was there in the office? Can I do something else?”.
So then I went back on talking to her about the recommendations and I told her Okay, once you start implementing these basic things and stick to the treatment that your doctor obviously recommended. Because usually that helps to rebuild that bone, but improve due to physical activity, right. It started limiting your acidic liquids, right. I'm also starting to improve on your diet correct? And then she went on and did these changes, she does follow up six months later now i don't know if i she ended up doing something more in the natural or I think osteopathic.
So she seek some type of herbs and then some type of different teas, right? That because she didn't want to be on these medications long term. Well, I was in in, in my 16 years of experience right, doing x rays and doing bone density. I never seen a drastic increase in bone density in a short period of time of six months right.
Now, when we look at the values right or maybe right now it wouldn't make sense right? But just one point. But only in this score and the scale of what we when we utilize this score, right? It's a huge improvement. We see an increase of a T-score of one point on the T-score, maybe within a year, a year and a half but for this lady to have these improvements within six weeks. It was amazing, right?
So then, once again, I respect the treatment that your doctor is given to you, but do something else, right? Try to try to do that extra, those basic recommendations and then science in medical, the medical or medicine tells that there's no cure for surprises. There's only a treatment, and we can definitely prolong the damage or extend the data, the timing that osteoporosis is going to damage your bones right. So medication. But I truly feel that by improving your quality of life, you do have control of osteoporosis, you manipulate how strong your bones can get, but by being proactive and just simple life, regular life activities, right?
Dr. David
Oh, that's awesome. It's a great story. And I think its kind of like the idea of there's no cure for osteoporosis implies that it's like a disease, or like it's a virus, or like something that you cath. It's more like putting on weigh. It's a condition, it's the state of your health. You don't get a bug and then all of a sudden get overweight or obese, it's because of the way that you live, its because of how you eat, and what you do.
And I think it's the same thing with osteoporosis. It's your habits, the way you live that puts you in an osteoritic state or not, and that's what this lady changed. And so, when doctors give you a medicine for osteoporosis, I think it's easy for some patients to go into the thinking of, Oh, this is what's going to fix it. Just like when I went to the doctor before and I had a sinus infection, and they gave me antibiotics and it fixed it. That's not how this works. It's medicine, and diet and exercise and other factors that are that might be in your life that are just like with obesity or putting on weight, it's the same way that you got to treat it. And you have to maintain it.
Julio Alcalá
And one of the reasons that I shared the story about this patient is because we run by protocols, right? So then you go to your doctor, medical doctor, right primary physician, they order any type of test. In this particular case for us to proceed screening the protocol. It's one, one screening or one test every two years. Now, if you're being diagnosed with osteoporosis, we're going to do one exam, or one scan every year, right? But that's the protocol.
But do you have to stick to that, or if you're paying with insurances you're going to have to because insurances follow these protocols, right? They're only going to pay if you have osteoporosis, going to be one or once a year, if you don't, they're going to pay once every two years, right? But the nice thing about individuals like these is that they don't they don't settle with which is one. Yeah, one diagnosis and one simple decision that okay, you have osteoporosis, take this pill, that's it.
No, she went on and took care of her health by doing the things that she had to do, and not waiting for next year, or next two years. She realized that we do have this authorization to do self-refer. So then she went back in measure herself. And there it is, right. Like she now knew that she's on the right path to improve her health, right. She didn't have to wait another year or two years. So be proactive. Yes, doctors are great. To take care of certain conditions, but you primarily have to have control of your own health. Right?
Dr. David
Yeah, that's awesome. Well, when should somebody in El Paso reach out to you for help with osteoporosis?
Julio Alcalá
We've been primarily talking about females, but men also develop a process. The statistics are, or the ratio is a little bit less. So one out of five men over the age of 55 will develop osteoporosis, same concept, but we don't know when. So 55, 60, 75, right, we don't know when but essentially, if you are a female, over the age of 50, you're listening to this podcast. You're a female over the age of 50. You never check your bones. your bones never hurt, right? Do yourself a favor, be proactive, go get your bone check. It's a five-minute scan.
That brings a lot of value to understand how your bones are, right? And if you're a man over the age of 55, you never go, and I guess this is also a cultural thing. Okay? I get this a lot about Hispanic men over the age of 50 that Oh, I feel strong I'm these martial men I get to lift, very heavy things, I'm out there. But once again it's a condition that is not going to discriminate on gender, in that particular sense. It doesn't matter why or I should say on ethnicity. Don't matter.
Having weak bones is not a matter of whether you were a mushroom or not, so I go get chicken. It's good. So now, if you're listening to this podcast, and you're a female, you're a male that are in your mid-40s. You don't have to wait. You don't have to wait into the recommendations. You can give us a call 915-613-2748 and schedule your bone density or osteoporosis screen. We'll be gladly to take you in, explain to you what the results are, and show you how your bones are. So that way you know you can improve your quality of life.
Dr. David
That's awesome. Were there any helpful tips that you share with clients that they usually don't know before they come in and talk to you and meet you?
Julio Alcalá
Um, any tips that I want to want to share? I mean, when you will see your doctor right your doctor orders a specific, a specific test whatever it is, right. We love educating the patients and one of these, this part of the education is the fact that you have rights as a patient as consumers, matter of fact. So if a Doctor sends you to any specific place, they give you the order, or the referral form right? More than likely, they're doing it because you know they have a good relationship with this particular place right? But you might go to this place and you may experience that they are not greeting you correctly right?
You may experience that maybe that technology they didn’t give you the time that you deserve as a as a consumer, as a client. In the state of Texas, you have the right to choose the place that is best for you right? Yes, we love doctors, making this referral but ultimately, the patient has a right to choose where to go.
So what we offer here is that if you're not happy with this place that your doctor is sending you to, you have options, call around, compare prices, compare rates. Ask about reviews online. Now it's very easy to get on Google and find out about the reviews of different places right? So coming to us, if you're concerned about you're an individual that are health and fitness oriented, and you just want to step it up, get to know your body at a deeper level, you can call us and we're able to help you in in understanding how your bones in your body composition is that way you can improve your health in and in your fitness as well.
Dr. David
That goes into the next question. We can talk about this before we even started the interview is and then you offer other services besides osteoporosis screening, we mentioned a little bit about the DEXA scan, but it gives other information besides the bone density. Could you tell us a little bit more?
Julio Alcalá
Yeah, so these scans, these DEXA scanner not only measures the bone, it also measures your visceral fat. Visceral fat is the toxic metabolic active fat around your organs. A lot of people ignore this. We usually, because we can feel what is underneath our skins right, we change, we pride ourselves in around our bellies, right? So we can say oh, I have a, you know, I'm overweight or I have these six amount of pounds of fat. But most people ignore that internally underneath our abdominal muscles. On top of our organs, we have these very vicious, toxic fat that is there.
The more fat that you have, the more chances of developing cardiovascular diseases. The more visceral fat you have, the more chances of developing metabolic syndrome and diabetes, type two or type two diabetes. So then our DEXA scan can also measure these and let you know, so we know that the recommended value of visceral fat is less than one pound. Anything more than one pound is excess visceral fat.
Sadly, listen to these guys. Okay. Here in El Paso, we know that we are consider a very obese community, right? The average of visceral fat, in El Paso, is three and a half pounds to four and a half pounds of visceral fat. The recommended value is one pound or less, right? So then, you know, this is a I wish you can invite me to another podcast to talk about the certified DEXA scan, we'll make sure this is as well. We can also make sure we have the ability to measure your muscle, find out how much muscle you carry in this is an important value for muscle symmetry.
For those of you out there practicing any type of a sport, any type of physical activity, muscle symmetry, it's an amazing thing that most people ignore. So we know that the body works best when it's symmetrical. And essentially what's going to be doing the work is the muscles, right? So you minimize injuries by staying symmetrical, right how much muscle you're carrying on one side compared to the other. We're talking about your hands and your legs. So we can measure that as well. And then the last thing is, because of these BMI, the body mass index, this is a formula developed, back in the 1800s.
So you go to a doctor, they take your weight, and they tell you you're overweight, when in reality you might not be. So DEXA scan can let us know your true classification of weight per se, by accurately measuring, you're measuring your body fat percentage,
Dr. David
I've had this scan done myself, you did it on me, and I even had it back when I was in college. So I knew about it. And it's fast. I mean, you just lay down on this little bed, you put a pillow there, and you're not in the tube, it’s not like an MRI machine. So just to paint the picture from somebody who's done it. It's an open area and there's this arm that slowly goes over you, and it's maybe a foot away from you and it doesn't feel scary in any way, that is nothing loud it just it's very quiet. It's almost like it's just like it i mean it makes probably about same type of noises of like a printer might, and that's it. The whole scan itself is over within minutes, maybe like what 5-10 minutes
Julio Alcalá
Yeah depending on the Hight. Tall individuals is going to take anywhere between six to seven minutes. It all depends on that, but on the average anywhere from four up to seven minutes. You're going to have your waste coming in and you describe it. Very nice. It's not invasive whatsoever. So you're completely dressed. The only recommendation that we want to make sure is that we don't want you wearing metal, obviously within your clothing but if you go there with a nice comfortable clothing without metals, you just hop on the on the scanner and it starts scanning from head to toes.
You're not going to see or feel anything. The radiation amount that's another issue. Most were concerned about radiation we always tell patients to be concerned about radiation. But this scanner is very minimal quantities of radiation in a full scan, compared to an X ray compared to a CT scan. It's almost incomparable. The scan is very, very safe. Yes, we take precautions, nonetheless. Because once again, we're working with radiation, but that's our responsibility as technologist to make sure that that your scan is safe, that is high quality and that we're utilizing the least amount of radiation possible.
Dr. David
Yeah, so it's very easy to do. And the information you get is invaluable and I've seen people that are into the extremes. People looking at their body fat and muscle mass like the body builders, the people that are doing fitness competitions, and look a certain way and get their body fat down. But even your everyday Joe that just wants to get healthier and lose fat and put on muscle, they're not interested in competing. The DEXA scan gives you top notch information to be able to meet those goals and measure as you're going along.
Julio Alcalá
I utilize this phrase, and I'm pretty sure you have heard this before, what gets measured gets managed, right? So most individuals, as you described, they go start doing exercise or trying to improve their fitness, but if you're not assessing your body, measuring your body, how can you improve? I mean, you can go by looking at yourself in the mirror, but that's an external look, right? What's happening inside, you're going to rely on different technology.
So then the other thing is, let me tell you this. This is very, here in El Paso right? Not too long ago I was driving on I-10 and I see these billboards about Weight Loss Challenges. I'm not bashing anyone here or anything like that right no fitness centers but they're very common. That's what I'm trying to say weight loss challenges are very common. I support them because they at least get you motivated to do something. The problem with that is that individuals losing, or places that promise you that you're going to lose 20 pounds 30 pounds within a four to six-week period. You can do it, and they have the system to allow you to lose that drastic weight.
The problem with that is that as you lose weight, or you just go by your scale, you don't know what you're losing. You don't know if these 20 pounds, 30 pounds you don't know if it’s just mainly fat. You don’t know if it's a combination of fat or muscle, or even worse, you don’t know if it’s a combination of fat, muscle, and bone density. So then you might feel great. You might look great losing 20 pounds. But what are those 30 pounds? Did you maintain your bone density? Did you maintain your muscle as well?
Now when you decide to do these types of challenges, it's almost like a train, everyone is doing them. I encourage you to measure yourself. Create a baseline measurement, see how you are before your weight loss challenge, and I'm not talking about measuring tapes, okay, or even calipers. You got to find a technology that measures inside of you, gives you quantities of your tissues, then go on and practice your diet, your nutrition, your training, whatever they're offering to you. Then follow up with a scan and see what you lost.
Because if you're making an investment in time and money to these places, or anyone it can be an online thing, right? But if you're paying in these training or nutrition is not yielding the right results. Then you're being you know, they're tricking you in an essence, right? And then more than that, they're potentially affect your health. So then be wise about that.
And the other thing is that whatever weight that you lose, you want to sustain it, you want to maintain it, you don't want to lose weight in six weeks, and then just to see yourself in four months gaining it all back. So, DEXA scan will let us know realistically how much can you improve, in an X period of time, so that you leave the practice understanding, okay, this is our realistic approach. Once I meet these benchmarks, I'm going to be able to maintain my weight loss. Not only for six months, but on a long term, right.
That's what you want. But you need a tool, you need a tool to measure and to determine your values internally. The best technology that is out there is DEXA, nothing is going to be as good. There’re some other commercial devices, but they're you're dealing with a large margin of error in terms of the number, so decide where you can afford what you can and you know what, check us out, go visit www.XRImagingEP.com check out rates there. Very accessible very affordable. This is nothing all you know that it's, it's going to be out of the pocket of most individuals. It's something that, if you are spending X amount of dollars in a weekend, you know, to go have fun. Pretty sure you can afford our scans definitely.
Dr. David
Well, cool. Well, so you mentioned the website, and you mentioned the phone number as well. Can you tell us phone number one more time in case somebody wants to reach out to you?
Julio Alcalá
Yes, so you can reach XR imaging at 915-613-2748 you can also find us on our website www.XRImagingEP.com and we are on social media Facebook and Instagram you can find us the same way as us XR Imagine.
Dr. David
Awesome. Well great, awesome interview here for the podcast. If there's anything else you want to let us know.
Julio Alcalá
Yes, for those listeners of you who are interested in getting a full body composition analysis, this is the analysis that we talked about where we analyze your bones, we analyze your fat, your visceral fat, your body fat, and your lean mass. We call this a body composition analysis. So if you're interested in getting this analysis, we offer you a 10% discount. Only if you mentioned this podcast that you listened to this podcast and then make a reference of your practice.
Dr. David
Awesome. Fantastic. Thank you so much for that discount. This is huge. Well, great interview Julio, thank you so much for your time and wisdom and we look forward to possibly me on the show again sometime in the near future.
Julio Alcalá
Yeah, any other topic that you can think of that can bring value to your listeners or to your audience, please think about me.
Dr. David
Absolutely. Bye, guys. We'll catch you next time.
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