Gabapentin cause osteoporosis?

Posted by iamnana @iamnana, Aug 16 12:49pm

My pain management Dr put me on gabapentin for nueraphy due to back pain. I started out on 100mgs daily. I had to increase to 1500 mgs daily . I was taking it for 10 months.now 1 year later I went from osteopinia to osteoporosis. Did gabapentin make my bone health worse?

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Gary | @gmoore36 | Aug 20 11:34am

That's great Leonard! Rigorous inquiry. No my comment was added to answer the original question posed by the original poster @https://connect.mayoclinic.org/member/00-70fff54d2142d166407037/. Cheers,

thenazareneshul | @thenazareneshul | Aug 31 9:25pm

I had a hysterectomy at age 55, and that shut down my ovaries which cut my hormone production off. Six months later I had osteoporosis because of that. So, a couple years in a row, I had infusions for the osteoporosis and then my Dexa scan came back osteopenia, which is in between osteoporosis and one's bones being okay, again. I am now 70 years old, and the Dexa scans (bone scans) still come back osteopenia. Now, back in 2015, I was put on Lyrica which is a pre-gabapentin drug. Then, in 2017 (7 years ago) that was changed to just plain Gabapentin, which is SO much better for me, pain wise. I still get Dexa scans, I just had one 2 months ago. I still do not have Osteoporosis. It's been coming back osteopenia for well over 10 years now, every year. Most ins pays for you to be tested for osteoporosis, if the doctor says it's medical necessary. The older you get as a woman, the more routine it becomes.

iamnana | @iamnana | Sep 1 11:14am

I had a Dexa scan and Dr was shocked my numbers changed so much. I went from osteopenia to osteoarthritis in 3 years. My doctor is still I'm getting some blood work done to see if we can figure out why but the only thing I can figure out is I was on Gabapentin. Then I did some research and discovered it can cause low bone density.