Osteoporosis treatment or strontium citrate?

95% of people have too much calcium in their body (from eating cheese, etc.)and not enough magnesium or.phosphorous. They need to be in a 2:1:1 ratio.
Excessive calcium intake results in it building up in the soft tissues, causing arthrtitis, cateracts, hardening of heart valves, and so on.
Natural Vit D3 is important. Blood levels should be around 40-60, with it mostly coming from daily mid-day sun exposure. Optimal levels of Vit D (and all the benefits that go with it) are just biomarkers of how much sun exposure people get, per a large Norwegian study.
Vit K2, found in fermented foods is what drives the blood calcium into the bones.

Celiac is a usually from antiobiotic resistant Strep in the guts. It LOVES gluten (and often eggs & dairy, too) and causes great inflammation when fed it's favs and multiplying like crazy. Starve it out by going mostly raw vegan for a few weeks. No gluten, no dairy, no pork, no eggs, no refined sugars or refined vegetable oils. All the organic fruits, berries, colorful vegetables and herbs you can eat as soups, smoothies, salads, etc. Any meat protein to be eaten in the afternoon, not morning.
Will need to eat or snack every 1.5 to 2 hours to get the needed 2000+ calories a day to sweep those toxic dead strep bodies out of your guts. Drink only lemon water and herbal teas. Minimize patent Rx & OTC meds since they stress the liver and gut biome. Have steamed sweet potatoes at dinner as much as possible.
You will also lose any excess weight as a side effect.

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Before I say anything, I want to say you should discuss everything with your doctor - I am NOT a doctor. I am a social worker with a strong science and medical background. I have very severe osteoporosis - my DEXA scan came back at -5.7 (severe osteoporosis begins at -2.5). So I have been talking to doctors and reading everything I could get my hands on. I DO have an extenuating circumstance in that I had a pituitary tumor that caused my endocrine system to kind of drop off - my thyroid and adrenals stopped working and I had zero Human Growth Hormone (HGH). The tumor has been removed and I am now taking thyroid, cortisol for my adrenals (to keep me from going into a coma), and I am getting HGH to inject nightly. There are so many options for reversing my bone loss, but it is a bit of an emergency as I have had fractures. So my doctors and I decided to put me on a very low dose estrogen and progesterone regimen and I have a reference paper for that if anybody is interested. I researched all the bone growth prescription drugs, talked to a lot of women who had used them, and decided to not use them. The side effects were worrisome and some women said their side effects were irreversible. Also, doctors told me that when you stop using the bisphosphonates, all the bone growth you gained is lost. The way those drugs work is they prevent your bones from losing the old bone. Usually your body gets rid of old bones and makes new bones, but the bisphosphonates prevent those old bones from going. That old bone shows up on scans and makes it look like you have new bone growth, but it is dead bone. One of the risks I could not accept is osteonecrosis or bone death, which usually begins in the jaw. Doctors will tell you this is rare. Rare though it may be, after talking to four women who have it, I decided it just wasn't worth it. Besides, I want new healthy. bone. So I began studying vitamins and minerals, and how to build bone naturally. I quickly dismissed strontium after talking with several researchers and doctors. It's another case of giving you the appearance of new bone, but it goes away the minute you stop taking it. This is what my scientist/doctor friend told me about strontium: "Strontium is a basic metallic element like calcium, for which it substitutes in bone. It's the reason that air nuclear testing was stopped in the 1960’s, because the radioactive isotope of Strontium (Strontium 90) accumulated in children’s bones while they were growing - from drinking milk from cows who’d eaten grass that had absorbed it from the air. The non-radioactive isotopes are probably fine, and are the only ones that could be sold for osteoporosis."

So I moved on to studying the vitamins and minerals. It is best to eat foods high in calcium. If you think you are falling short, you should supplement with calcium. I use a food-based calcium and there are several brands on the market. You can search for it on Amazon - I get most of my supplements there. You also want to take a good magnesium. Everybody's magnesium needs are different - if you get diarrhea, take a little less. Since magnesium and calcium frequently come together in pill form, you should know that your body can only absorb 500 mg of calcium OR magnesium TOTAL in a four-hour period of time, and calcium should be taken two hours away from other prescription meds or vitamins. So I am taking half of my calcium/magnesium medicine and taking it four times a day instead of two. The vitamins I need and DO take at the same time as calcium and/or magnesium are Vitamin D3 and Vitamin K2 (MK4 and MK7). While it is possible to eat. enough vitamin K in food - you need K2 (MK4 and MK7) for the human body - so I supplement. There is no hypervitaminosis with Vitamin K, so you won't overdose on it. Vitamin K2 tells the body to send the calcium to the bones, not to the kidneys or arteries - it is a very important vitamin. I add to this 3 mg of boron. Some people add silica, but it can cause kidney failure, so I do not. In addition to all of this, I take a good food-based multivitamin, a good B-complex, and a good vitamin C, and zinc (50 mg max).

Many people take beef collagen (from grass fed cows) in their tea or smoothie. I have to start doing this on a more regular basis. Someone pointed out an NIH study that shows it will help with bone growth.

Further, there is proof that a diet that includes sugar OF ANY KIND is not good for bones, and if someone wants me to look up a citation for this, I will. I have gone completely off sugar (well, I get 1 gram of sugar in my celery). For the past five years I have done the diet found in the book "The Candida Cure" by Ann Boroch. I realize going off sugar is not something most people want to do - but since I MUST take that small dose of steroid daily for my adrenal function, I had to go off sugar to avoid candida overgrowth. And in the end, it worked out good for my bones. The diet is dreaded by most people - but as someone who has done it a long time, I have to say I would never go back to eating sugar. More and more I see people are starting to realize how bad sugar is for us. I had precancerous metaplasia cells in my gut before I went on the diet - they are gone! My teeth have never been better. My inflammation in joints, bones, everywhere has reduced drastically, and a life-long horrible skin disease has abated. I sleep like a baby, my anxiety is gone - there just isn't a bad side to that story.

So these are all the things I have started doing for my bones. I don't think exercise helps, but I do it anyway. I do not smoke cigarettes and I do not consume alcohol. I will give references as time permits and where I have them. I encourage everyone to do their own research and try to find your own truth. I will be getting a bone density DEXA scan sometime near early summer. I wanted to wait another year, but doctors are pushing me to get it done. There are three endocinologists that are hoping I will see the error of my ways and will take their bone-building drugs but that isn't going to happen. The side effects are too great for me, and knowing that the minute you stop, all that old bone vanishes and you are back to where you started or worse is enough for me to know I can't do it. I want real bone growth. I'm sure that there will be some improvement as I have not had another fracture in the past year and a half.

Of all the things I am doing, I think the Vitamins D3, K2 (MK4 and MK7), food-based calcium, magnesium, and boron are the most helpful. There is some great online information available for free regarding Vitamin K2, and there are some good books out about it now. As I said, most doctors do not know very much about Vitamin D3 and many know nothing about Vitamin K2. I expect this will change over time.

My main goal is to educate. Please discuss any changes in your regimen with your doctor, as I am not a doctor.

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You raised every concern I have about the nasty side effects and risks of the drugs to 'treat' osteoporosis. I have 'mild osteopenia and a breast cancer lumpectomy in October, 2021 and really worried about taking the recommended aromatase inhibitor because it would have necessitated taking bone anti-resorptive meds and all have nasty side effects. Or worse unintended consequences. An endocrinologist planned the classes of them to me, bisphosphonates to monoclonal antibodies to SERM to parathyroid-related approaches and I dont want to have to take any if them so declined anastrozole. [I also declined it due to cardiac-related side effects so the bone loss concern wasn't the sole reason.] The endocrinologist also mentioned that the drugs don't actually redensify bone as harden the remaining bone. Which makes the bones more brittle. Note, maybe the newest drugs do remind healthy bone but this consult was last week. He also pointed out that some if the drugs, if discontinued, 'take back' more bone than that gained from taking them! So I also welcome anything anyone knows about maintaining bone health. I'm addressing diet, taking a calcium/D3/K2 formula and adding weight-bearing exercise. If boron or trace minerals or other supplements can help here, I'm among those grateful to read about them.

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Tymlos, Forteo and Evenity do "dedensify" bone. Prolia and biphosponates affect resorption, as does Evenity but to a lesser degree. Brittle bones may occur after several years, with Prolia and biphosphonates Prolia is the one that can result in quick drop in density after stopping: not true of biphosphonates. For osteopenia, there have been changes in favor of not treating in many cases.

Anastrazole will increase bone loss similar to the loss at menopause but I found that after the first year this loss lessened. I took an aromatase inhibitor with full-blown osteoporosis even though bone meds were not possible (long story). My Oncotype was low but for me there was no question I would do everything I could for my cancer.

What heart conditions specifically are you wary of from anastrazole? I have paroxysmal afib but it did not affect that.

You could consider anastrazole without meds and then do a bone-growing med if your bone density worsens. (Again, I had actual osteoporosis for 14 years so there is wiggle room. Your bones don't turn to dust instantly when you cross -2.5.)

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I know this is a journey of decisions and sometimes changing one's mind. As to anastrozole, I have mild osteopenia (a manufactured term to sell Fosamax years ago) that estrogen-depletion would surely turn into osteoporosis unless I took meds to hopefully prevent that. The cardiac concern with the aronatase inhibitors is two-fold. A known and frequent side effect is the triggering of high cholesterol, which I already have and cannot reduce with statens. (Not everyone gets this side effect but it's among the most frequent.) The lipid metabolism doesn't necessarily return to pre-anastrozole levels either upon discontinuing the drug. There is some concern also the effect of the drug on arterial endothelial tissue but the data is recent. The Endopat test, which I once had to consider stroke risk as part of a comprehensive coronary health assessment , measures the endothelial rebound rate. I have the genetic marker for heart disease but, quixotically enough, am so far staying out of trouble with low calcium score and good echocardiogram results. But it's always on my mind and I try to reduce risk factors. If I had a high OncotypeDX risk score, I'd have to balance the downsides and 50% rate of arthyria of anastrozole v. statistical odds of BC recurrence differently. I don't envy any of us trying to balance the trade-offs though glad there are choices.

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95% of people have too much calcium in their body (from eating cheese, etc.)and not enough magnesium or.phosphorous. They need to be in a 2:1:1 ratio.
Excessive calcium intake results in it building up in the soft tissues, causing arthrtitis, cateracts, hardening of heart valves, and so on.
Natural Vit D3 is important. Blood levels should be around 40-60, with it mostly coming from daily mid-day sun exposure. Optimal levels of Vit D (and all the benefits that go with it) are just biomarkers of how much sun exposure people get, per a large Norwegian study.
Vit K2, found in fermented foods is what drives the blood calcium into the bones.

Celiac is a usually from antiobiotic resistant Strep in the guts. It LOVES gluten (and often eggs & dairy, too) and causes great inflammation when fed it's favs and multiplying like crazy. Starve it out by going mostly raw vegan for a few weeks. No gluten, no dairy, no pork, no eggs, no refined sugars or refined vegetable oils. All the organic fruits, berries, colorful vegetables and herbs you can eat as soups, smoothies, salads, etc. Any meat protein to be eaten in the afternoon, not morning.
Will need to eat or snack every 1.5 to 2 hours to get the needed 2000+ calories a day to sweep those toxic dead strep bodies out of your guts. Drink only lemon water and herbal teas. Minimize patent Rx & OTC meds since they stress the liver and gut biome. Have steamed sweet potatoes at dinner as much as possible.
You will also lose any excess weight as a side effect.

Jump to this post

Does anyone take Forteo ? My Dr wants me to start taking this. My fear is the cost. Injecting myself daily. and I don't hear much about it.

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Can you take strontium citrate with Reclast? I have been on Actonel and my density decreased. I am supposed to start on Reclast next month. I would like to also try the strontium citrate supplements and Algaecsl at the same time. is this ok?

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