@windyshores That's how my thinking goes too. "locking in gains" is a bit of an exaggeration and as you say for a limited time. I'm only just beginning to look into that but it seems that after stopping bisphosphonates you may get a limited number of years of slow decline of bone density. That's your "drug holiday". And that slow decline may vary significantly with Risedronates having the fastest decline and Reclast the slowest.

I am just at the point of starting my second med as a follow up to Evenity and I hope to do another round of Evenity (though maybe a shorter round) after that. But eventually even if I continue to be successful in gaining bone density (and quality I hope) I have to face the same issues we are talking about here. How can we keep those gains and not suppress normal bone functioning too much and for too long? If we take Fosamax or Reclast for 3 years and stop - how long will we keep our bone density? Will we lose all we gained if we stop for 3 years or 5 years? Will we be scared into taking Prolia because it can (supposedly) be taken for more years without danger of overly brittle bone? It's a mess.
Are there studies that address these long term concerns? Any talks by top doctors?