There is a new study from Australia, published in the Journal of the Canadian Dental Association, that shows the connection between taking bisphosphonate drugs – Fosomax, Boniva and Actonel and jawbone collapse.

Although most doctors believe that the problem is with intravenous drugs given in cases of cancer, it has been proven that oral drugs have the same problems. It is the conjuction of bone drugs plus dental surgery for replacement of teeth or root canals that compounds the problem. Who among us can say when their teeth will need some deep work?

Even if you have only taken the drugs for less than three years there is still a risk. Since the drugs stays in your system for ten years, the risk is also present for ten years.

Since this is such an important issue I have created an article on the articles page about this topic, with a link to the report. You’ll find it here -  http://osteo-solutions.com/dentalproblems.htm

Interestingly there is now a new name for this new disease – BON – Bisphosphonate-associated osteonecrosis. A new disease created entirely by drug companies!

Check out the full article, stay informed and spread the word.

I got two emails and a newsletter today dealing with drug reactions to the bone drugs – the pace seems to be stepping up.

One customer who bought my vest after taking Actonel for ten months now has found out that she has a jaw-bone  calcification. Here is her story:

Hi Pam, I have been on actonel 10 months. 5 months ago I developed a hard  protuding sore spot on my lowest part of the bone in my jaw. The dentist and family dr. had no idea what it was. Today I was talking to a pharmacist who was telling me about a women on actonel who developed the same on the roof of her mouth and had to stop actonel and have it removed surgically.

It seems according to the pharmacist that 1% of people on actonel develope these jaw calcifcations. Lucky me! This is not well known and there is very little on the internet as it is so rare.Thought I would let you know- am curious to see if you knew of it.

I hadn’t heard of it, and yet I wouldn’t call 1% of users to be ‘rare’. We’ll probably hear more about it as time goes by. Here is the second story:

Hi Pam, I am up to 6 lbs in my weight vest and am finding it comfortable to wear and it has definitely improved my balance!  I rate it a ’10′.  Now my sister also has one.

My doctor is not going to be happy that I am not taking Fosamax (used it for 19 months out of the last 36 months. But I am going to give him a brochure about what I am doing instead.  He diagnosed me with gastritis this summer.  I believe it  was caused by the medicine, or at least, contributed to, several months of living mainly on cream of rice when all foods made me too ill to eat.  He scorned my concern that the Fosamax was part of my ‘problem’ and wanted me to go back on it as soon as my stomach was ‘better’.  I haven’t, even though I am feeling fine now.

THANKS for designing this vest!

The final story from Dr Robert Rowen’s newsletter concerns a woman who took Fosomax for nine years and woke up one day with incredible pain in her jaw. She had repeated surgeries and multiple courses of antibiotics and finally had a titanium plate to replace part of her jaw. She lost teeth and has a permanent loss of sensation in her face. Can you imagine the agony she went through? And what a drastic downturn her life has taken just from trying to make her bones a bit better. What a nightmare! And she’s not alone. More people are having this happen every day. If anyone you love is still on these drugs, please get them off before it’s too late.

Sorry to be a downer – but if you save one woman you love from this stuff, that would be a huge gain!

Pam

I had a call from a woman who ordered a weight vest after trying Actonel. She only took it for two weeks because she had severe muscle pain after taking it. When she was alarmed by this reaction she somehow found the  Ask a Patient site.

I had never heard of it. There is so much information on the net but you don’t come across most of it unless your search questions are varied and tireless! At this site you put in the name of the drug you are concerned with and it gives you all the reports from people who have actually taken it. What an amazing resource. I love it!

If you put in Fosamax, it has hundreds of responses, almost all negative reactions. Actonel hit a bonanza, there must have been hundreds of women with muscle problems and digestive problems after taking Actonel. There were less for Boniva because it is the third runner in the drug stakes. Anything they say about Actonel would also be true for Fosomax, Boniva and the other bisphosphonates.

There were women who took it only once or twice and got terrible swelling and joint pain that would not go away. Some women have been completely crippled and the effects persist even when the drug is no longer taken. These drugs do not leave the body easily, they can be traced years later in the cells. In many cases the women told their doctors it was the drug and they were not believed. I think any doctor reading this site would at least hesitate to prescribe these drugs so wholeheartedly.

I am just so appreciative of the internet and all the wonderful resources that we can reach. Check out some of these poor women’s stories for yourself at the link above.

Pam

This is a great example of the brain-washing that we have all been subjected to by the drug companies.
There was a news article yesterday headlined, "Depression can weaken bones, Israeli study shows."  This article was in Reuters, Oct 30, 2006. I won’t link to it because these news links get broken really quickly. But you can probably find it by putting the title in a search engine.

The lead paragraph, the only one that many people read, says that depression can weaken bones so anti-depressant drugs could be used to treat Osteoporosis.

When you keep reading you find that the study is based on a few mice in a lab. Mice were given drugs to induce depression. Is this already sounding bizarre and unreal to you? Can mice be depressed or can that be induced by a synthetic chemical? I would question that.

Pressing on we find that when the mice had successfully been driven to depression by chemical means, their bone density in hip and spine drops. They have this ‘scientific’ explanation about noradrenaline harming the osteoblasts. What about the fact that when you are depressed you quit moving around, also leading to bone loss?

So then they give these sad little mice anti-depressant chemical drugs to balance the depressing chemicals that they already got and whoa, they start feeling better. Is that amazing? Does that have anything to do with real people?

Now this is called a breakthrough. Here is their conclusion – "The new findings … point for the first time to depression as an important element in causing bone mass loss and osteoporosis," Hebrew University professor Raz Yirmiya, who took part in the study, said in a statement.

The drug companies that make Prozac, Zoloft, etc. are dancing with joy. Now they have another bunch of customers for their dangerous drugs. Good news for them because their sales have dropped after people finding out about all the negative side effects. Check out this article on Dr Mercola’s site  Here is a small quote from the article –

"Harvard Medical School’s Dr. Joseph Glenmullen documents the ominous long-term side effects associated with these and other serotonin-boosting medications. (Prozac, Zoloft, etc.)
These side effects include neurological disorders, such as disfiguring facial and whole-body tics that can indicate brain damage; sexual dysfunction in up to 60 percent of users; debilitating withdrawal symptoms, including visual hallucinations, electric shock-like sensations in the brain, dizziness, nausea, and anxiety; and a decrease of antidepressant effectiveness in about 35 percent of long-term users. In addition, Dr. Glenmullen’s research and riveting case studies shed shocking new light on the direct link between these drugs and suicide and violence."

Does that sound like something you’d like to take to fix the normal thinning of your bones as you get older? Not likely! But the study will be published in a scientific journal this month and some doctors will just read the first paragraph.

My advice is, if your doctor offers you anti-depressants to treat your bones, put on your weight vest and your running shoes and walk or run in the opposite direction.

Pam

It has been in the news lately that thousands of women who take the bisphosphanate drugs like Fosomax, have had bone death in the jaw after having minor dental surgery. This is called osteonecrosis and the drug companies have been forced to mention it as a side effect in their drug literature.
For now it is mostly occuring in women who have taken the intravenous version of the bisphosphonate drugs but there are more and more women coming forward who take the regular pill version. It was a dental surgeon, Dr Ruggiero, who first connected jawbone death with the bone drugs. Now the connection has been made the numbers of affected women are growing.

Now a new report from the American Dental Association advises dentists to have all women in their practices who take the bisphosphonate drugs, sign a release form before they do any dental surgery.
Some of my weight vest customers have told me that there are signs up in their dentists’ offices saying that they won’t work on women taking these drugs at all. With the amount of lawsuits in this country who can blame them! The dentists are the innocent bystanders who could end up taking the rap for the drug companies.

Another problem with the drugs is also coming to light. 120 women who have been taking the pill form of the drugs have been stricken with such incapacitating bone, joint or muscle pain that some were bedridden and others required walkers, crutches or wheelchairs. >

You may think that 120 people out of the millions who take the drug isn’t enough to worry about. But, according to the FDA, 90% of drug reactions go unreported. Plus doctors are inclined to think that the pain is caused by the osteoporosis itself instead of the drugs they have prescribed to treat it. In actual fact osteoporosis is, for the most part, a painless disease.

Dr Ruggiero says. "Risks increase the longer you’re on the drugs, and it can take years for the complication to manifest itself." These drugs stay in the body for years after you stop taking them.

Dr Susan Ott, of the University of Washington, says "These drugs are still relatively new and problems sometimes take years to show up. We’re not quite sure what we’re dealing with over the long haul. Side effects like this should make ordinary, healthy women think twice."

If you are reading this you probably already have decided not to take the drugs but here is more information you can use to persuade your friends to take the same path.

Winter is coming so be sure not to become a cold weather slug – keep moving to stay healthy.
Pam