Treating Osteoporosis: What works for you?

Hi there.......thanks for your response and important message. I want to respond to your inquiry about daily injection options. I did choose Tymlos and daily injections were part of my morning routine for two years. I had no side effects or issues at all. The Dexa scores that were -3 were from my wrist which I have now been told are not used in determining the level of osteoporosis in my body. So I have been concentrating on the hip scores.

Does that make sense to you?

May you have contentment and ease.
Chris

Good morning @toni7 .......you are right where I was 3 years ago. I had the same questions. I learned a lot about Tymlos and Forteo by visiting the websites. Both producers have phone numbers you can call and talk to a medical professional. I found that to be helpful. They also have access to the research staff and can get some of those important questions answered at the source. Here is the number for Amgen which produces Evenity and Prolia. 800 772 6536.

I know that we worry about biased responses because of the relationship with the producer. I never felt that......in my conversations with these folks. And they acknowledged and handled "negative" inquiries well.

So you have experienced doctors who don't like questions. I prepared a list of 14 questions for my appointment today with the Urology surgeon I will have next week for bladder sling surgery. She requested this extra pre-surgery meeting so I hope it is positive and helpful.

I will look for your new information after your appointment with the endocrinologist. Thanks for staying in touch. Your contributions are helpful to so many members.

May you be safe, protected and free from inner and outer harm.
Chris

I just read that Pepcid and Zantac have less of an impact on nutritive absorption and therefore bones. And baking soda may work! I don't know about that approach 🙂

@toni7 sorry I thought your worse score was -2.5. I never get more than one score for the spine (lumbar). What is the -3.5 for? And by "neck" do you mean lumbar neck?

If insurance pays or if you qualify for their assistance, Tymlos or Forteo might be a good approach. You can ask your doctor,

Baking soda worked great for me so far. I first took it daily for 3 days. Then didn't seem to need it for another week. Now I take it 'as needed' but that's currently averaging once every few weeks or so. I seemed to have to take the prescription drugs with increasing, not decreasing frequency so that's good news. It might not be a cure for really serious GERD or something but I'm not sure any of the GERD drugs are either.

This article lists drugs that might not be bones' best friends. Some surprised me. As did a study suggesting SSRIs are a problem because affecting serotonin levels.

Medicines That Can Be Bad for Your Bones
https://americanbonehealth.org/bone-health/medications-that-can-be-bad-for-your-bones-2/

Thank you for the resource information!

Hi @artscaping. I probably missed something you wrote about your case triggering drug therapy. I thought t-scores like what you stated....hip -1.5 and -1.2....mean only low bone mass and typically don't trigger a doctor to suggest drug therapy. Yours seems to be a case when your doctor was being proactive, and I'm sure also that your story, as is everyone's, is more complicated than I am aware of/remember, not helped by my continuing inability to smoothly trace our thread backward. I simply have to stop trying to correlate peoples' scores to their treatment. Thanks again.

This Dexa scan was done 2020. I am due for another and assume the new endocrinologist will order one.
Results of 2020:
Spine:
L1 -2.8
L2 -3.2
L3 -3.1
L4 -3.5
Femoral neck (Left) -3.2
Femoral neck (Right) -3.0
I was in a bad boating accident when I was 35 yrs. old and fractured my spine.
Region L2, L3, L4 were fractured. It's all healed.
As suggested by Chris, I will call the companies of Tymlos, Forteo and Evenity and ask questions. Other than what I have in mind to ask ... any suggestions of further questions to ask? Anything and everything helps me to make a decision. Hopefully my new endocrinologist allows me the time and offers truthful and educated answers to my confusing state of mind on how to address my treatment.
Have a peaceful evening,
Toni

Those fractures, even if traumatic and not clearly osteoporotic, plus your scores, make you eligible for Forteo, Tymlos and Evenity. I chose Tymlos, as I have written before, because I could start at a partial dose of 2 pen clicks out of 8 and work my way up, which I did. Also, you can take Evenity after the other two but not the other way around. Good luck!