Posted by Noa on December 3, 2004, at 5:20:41
In reply to Osteoporosis treatments?, posted by Racer on December 2, 2004, at 14:59:17
My mom had success on Fosomax for about 7 years. Before that, she had had a number of fractures--wrist, elbow, ribs (from coughing) and eventually vertebrae. She lost height and developed some back curve.
First, she was on hormone treatment but I don't think it helped--I think this was the period during which she continued to have fractures.
Then she started Fosomax and the fractures stopped. It made a huge difference in her life, of course, and she did not develop any more curve in her spine or lose more height.
However, two years ago, after being on the med for 7 yers, she had some stress/compression fractures in more vertebrae and was basically immobilized in extreme pain for a few months. She clearly had a lot more forward curve in her back as well as twisting slightly to one side. And she lost more inches of height for sure. It took a while to recover from this episode and her life was very limited for a while. Now she is active again, but not at the same level she was before the vertebrae fractures that happened 2 years ago.
It turns out that Fosomax often loses effectiveness at about 5 or 6 years. So now, she set out to find out more about other meds. It wasn't easy. Fortunately, a new treatment came on the market shortly after that, but it was very expensive and much more involved than just taking a pill and having to stand up for 30 minutes after dosing, which is how you take Fosomax.
The new med is Forteo, a recombinant RNA med, which is injected once a day. It comes in a 28 day injection pen that has a dial for setting the dose, etc. It has to be refrigerated at a specific range of temperature.
It's been working well for her. The only complication is that sometimes she has a bit too much calcium in her blood and is supposed to cut down on the dose, but the way the pen works, this is hard to do, so she dosed every other day for a while. But this meant wasting a lot of the med in the pen, because they only come in 28 day pens and the med expires after 28 days (I think she has sometimes stretched it a few more days when she is on half dosing, but is wary of going further). But the excess calcium thing is not frequent.
Based on my mother's experience with fractures and pain, I would definitely recommend treating osteoporosis ASAP to prevent these from happening.
poster:Noa
thread:423440
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/health/20041005/msgs/423774.html