Becky Williams had been diagnosed with osteoporosis she had a hunch that she shouldn’t take the her doctor prescribed for her
04/22/2011
Becky Williams of Terre Haute had a hunch that you should not take the medication for osteoporosis, her doctor prescribed for her. A yoga teacher for nine years and an adjunct professor in the Department of English at Michigan State University, Williams, 69, had been diagnosed with osteoporosis – the weakening of the bones – a small part of your upper leg. To address this and to help strengthen her bones, the doctor recommended Reclast, a relatively new drug that is administered once a year through an intravenous treatment. Despite doubts, Williams elected to receive annual treatment IV, treatment for the first time was in August 2009. The second occurred in August last year. “I have a good doctor,” said Williams, but regrets receiving treatments, mostly because she has always been physically active and have no major problems of osteoporosis. “I guess I did it to please my doctor,” she said.
Many osteoporosis drugs, including Reclast, fosamax
, Actonel and Boniva, are known as bisphosphonates, which are drugs that essentially make bones denser, however, some doctors believe it also reduces the ability of bone to heal after being injured. All bisphosphonates, but especially those administered intravenously, are believed to be linked to a serious disease characterized by exposed and “die” bones of the jaw. This sometimes-painful condition known as bisphosphonate associated osteonecrosis of the jaw (BRONJ). “I think it’s pretty well established that there is a link between bisphosphonates and jaw bone decay,” said Dr. Don-John Summerlin, professor of oral and maxillofacial pathology at New York University Medical Center in Indianapolis. In fact, even the drug companies have put warnings on labels stating that bisphosphonates can cause serious bone of the jaw, Reclast a warning on the website of the drug, for example, asserts that “can cause serious side effects including … serious jawbone problems (osteonecrosis).”
In addition to patients with osteoporosis, bisphosphonates are commonly prescribed for patients with cancer and bone related problems. In fact, bisphosphonates are sometimes included in the chemotherapy treatments, said Dr. Michael Deady, an oral surgeon Terre Haute-based, which is currently treating two patients with apparent BRONJ. Many patients who received chemotherapy in the past do not realize that they also received bisphosphonates, he said. Bisphosphonates in pill form such as Fosamax are often prescribed for patients who struggle with the conditions of osteoporosis or pre-osteoporosis. These drugs, in general, seem less tied to BRONJ, doctors interviewed by the Star Tribune. Bisphosphonates in large doses given intravenously are often reserved for patients with cancer and appear to pose a higher risk of the problem.
“Patients treated with oral bisphosphonate therapy have a significantly lower risk for BRONJ than patients treated with IV bisphosphonates,” stated the American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons position paper in 2006. “This opinion seems to be the case today, while some dentists do BRONJ among patients who have been using oral bisphosphonates for several years, cases appear to be less serious and less difficult to treat,” Deady said.
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