More about alendronic acid

Hello Green Granny

How long have you been taking AA ?? Funnily enough I stopped AA in Dec as well ! I have never taken it when I was on holiday anyway and when I came back after Xmas I had my sore throat and with all the things Eileen had said about it and my low steroids dose and so decided not to take it

I did ask/tell ? my Dr about it and she checked my Dexa scan and the only problem I have is very slight in one hip where I had a very bad fall years ago so she agreed

I hope your dental problems are sorted soon after I read everything on Osteonecrosis I was shocked !! My sister in law who strangely was taken ill at the same time as me in 2002 with a much rarer illness was on very high doses of steroids and has been on a lower dose since and on Methatrixate has been on AA ever since so over 8 years !! and still has osteoporosis despite taking it and is now being investigated for bone cancer and when they were doing this they discovered the pain in her leg was a fracture she didnt know about !! I thought there was a limit on AA of 5 years but she sees a Rheumatologist reguarly so they know and only now they are considering what else they can give her

I dont want AA again but I went out with 2 people last week who have osteoporosis and they take it so if I was in that position I might have to reconsider unless there was anything better to take

Best wishes

Mrs G

Good morning everyone and I hope it is for all on here.

Friend who took steroids for GCA for 11 years was recently prescribed AA as he is shrinking. Went to see GP last week and asked for something different as he was having bad nosebleeds while taking it which stopped when he left them off. GP didn't bat an eyelid or deny AA was the cause. Just said there were other things he could take but that they always started everyone on AA as it is the cheapest. :roll:

I wonder how long before we pay a premium if we can't take the\"cheapest\"? I fear that even those of us who at present trust our GP will begin to wonder before long.

[color=green:dbf677a64c]Granny Moss[/color:dbf677a64c] your Lord's Prayer, reforms version, looks only too likely.

I was watching a German programme the other day where the subject was osteoporosis and a lady on it who had osteoporosis despite AA developed a collapsed vertebra which was \"filled\" with bone cement and then she was given an antibody-type drug which works in a totally different way. It is given as an injection, I think at intervals of a few months, on the basis of a blood test. The first was given by the doctor, she would be able to give the others herself. I'll try and find out more about it.

The 5-year recommendation is a relatively new thing and (possibly) only from the FDA - so since it didn't happen in the UK it doesn't exist (like the vit D recommendations took a long time to be recognised in Britain). I appreciate the wide range of things that doctors need to keep up with but I do feel that many in the UK are very lax in their reading.

EileenH

Hi all.

Wonder if anyone could tell me. I am going for an xray next week on my thigh and hip.

Would any signs of osteoporosis be detected through a routine xray?

Gilly.

Gilly - loss of bone density may be suggested on a normal x-ray but not accurately. There would have to be a loss of about a third before it would show up (i.e. rather a lot!) and the appearance of the bones on an ordinary x-ray is very dependent on the length of time the exposure was - rather like with an ordinary photograph. The DEXA scan is a different technique and uses far less radiation than an ordinary chest x-ray. A common progression of a woman finding she has osteoporosis (because it has no symptoms until there is a fracture) is falling and breaking her wrist as she puts it out to save herself. Some doctors then do a DEXA on women of a certain age to rule out osteoporosis being the reason for the break.

It all has a great deal to do with our youth - maximum bone density is achieved by age 25 and after that it is a case of maintaining it. After 35, both men and women lose bone density steadily at a very slow rate. Our young women (in particular) are at considerable risk because of the preoccupation with weight control and cholesterol that leads them to not eat much in the way of calcium-containing dairy products together with the vitamin D story we have discussed so much recently. You must have vit D AND calcium to build strong bone. The advertising for skimmed milk has also not helped - yes, it has plenty of calcium, but because calcium needs fat to transport it into the body from the gut you don't absorb much. If I remember rightly, I think you absorb 5% of the calcium from skimmed milk but 95% of the calcium from semi-skimmed! All this means that some women are already at risk of osteoporosis before the menopause and after the menopause you lose bone density anyway because of the lack of oestrogens (HRT also prevents osteoprosis but gained bad press). It's the people with all the risk factors combining who are really at risk.

EileenH

Eileen H I have read this with horror :roll: :roll:

I stopped drinking 'ordinary' milk in my late 40's when I started the peri-menopause and moved over to soya milk ( to help the symptoms, which it did)..... was using soya milk on my muesli and in my hot drinks until 18 months ago when I started using skimmed milk thinking it was high in calcium.....

So if I am to read the information correctly, I need to move over to semi-skimmed to obtain the calcium I need?

Grrr! Just lost a post in the middle! Simply disappeared! Obviously someone objected to my rant about dietary products and the lies used to sell them!

All dairy milk and milk products are high in calcium - it's just you don't absorb it properly unless there is some fat to transport it across the gut wall. Even your calcium supplements should be taken along with a meal with a small amount of fat in it. My daughter used to get so upset at her partner's mother who only bought red-top milk - and she needed the calcium desperately! It tases of nothing - why choose it! :roll: Full fat milk is only 4% (5% at most if it's Jersey) so hardly high in fat. Semi-skimmed tastes better in tea - that's what I use for everything.

Our bodies need fat for healthy functioning - nerves, skin, bones. Most diet foods that are low fat have the fat replaced with carbohydrates which contribute little to our health - you get a blood sugar surge and when that falls you feel hungry again. A decent meal with a reasonable amount of fat and protein will satisfy you for longer and so you avoid snacking - most likely again on carbs. I am convinced that the diet industry is partly to blame for the obesity epidemic - the lower fat content in food indirectly creates appetite and the use of artificial sweeteners makes you want more sweet things. Just because there is no \"sugar\" doesn't mean you won't get an insulin surge in response to the other carbs and it is high insulin levels that lead to the deposition of excess calories as fat - not the butter on your potato or bread!

They've finally admitted that cholesterol in the diet has very little to do with the cholesterol level in your blood - I always said that, your liver makes cholesterol because it is the substance many hormones are derived from. The feedback system notes that a hormone is low and tells the liver: produce cholesterol. I want to know how higher levels of cholesterol parallel the vit D deficiency we now know exists - does the body know it needs more vit D so is producing the cholesterol as the precursor but we are not out in the sun without clothes and sunscreen enough to produce the vit D? We know there are strange things happening to hormone levels at all ages - maybe it's not just the hormones used in producing meat, the entire homeostasis in the human body is being messed with by changing lifestyle habits and use of drugs to control anything that someone suggests might be associated with a disease. For example, there are some patients with high blood pressure who become ill when given tablets to reduce it - because the high blood pressure was the body's way of making sure an organ kept working. The lower blood pressure with the tablets meant that organ didn't get enough blood flow to it. That's an unusual example - but there are more. And a tablet is given for one thing that leads to another problem because of a side-effect and the doctor gives another tablet to deal with the side effect rather than thinking about where it came from in the first place. And before you know where you are, grandma/pa is on 15 different drugs - and no-one stopped to think about how they might affect one another. :roll:

By the way - isn't soya milk supplemented with calcium? Don't know, only ever buy it for the niece who thinks she is lactose-intolerant so has eliminated all lactose-containing food from her diet. Which isn't the way to deal with it - you reduce the amount of lactose-containing food taken at one time to a level you can deal with. You should spread the dairy intake over the day, not have it all at breakfast followed by a latte on the way to work! :wink:

A lesson a week in school explaining the basic facts of food would be far more use than one of the computer hours!

EileenH

Fascinating reading...... thanks you

Yes, you are correct that soya milk does have added calcium and vitamins and I always used a good 'brand' not a supermarket cheapie!

I will switch to semi-skimmed milk although have to say I hate the taste of 'cow' !!!! After many years of not using milk it was hard to go back to it as it def has an unpleasant taste and smell of cow :lol: :lol: :lol:

I do try to spread my intake throughout the day and usually have a yogurt after my main evening meal. Have never given up butter but use it sparingly......milk with my muesli/porridge( although I vary my breakfasts) and sometimes have a yogurt alongside to help the steroids go down well! Will have a latte when I have a coffee 'out' with a friend, have increased my intake of cheese and will now have a cheese sandwich several times a week.

Use olive oil for cooking and never fry anything.

The reduction down to 18mg seems to be going well...... no problems to report as was having aching joints and muscles on 20mg and still the same..... has been cold, damp and wet here so not expecting to be 100% comfortable....... have been told to go down another 1mg on Tuesday so watch this space!

Another question...... I believe, after reading all your great info, that I should not be using low fat, no fat yogurts, which I am doing at the mo. A full fat would be better I presume for the reasons you have quoted?

Thank you Eileen for that interesting piece of information.

Like Fiftiesgirls, I also gave up drinking full fat milk some years ago, and with taking Vit D suppliments I am now wondering if it was all worth it. Like you though Eileen, I do actually prefer semi-skimmed milk in my tea and coffee. :wink:

It seems to me though as time goes by, ideas of what is good for you and what isn't change quite dramatically, and sometimes when the so called experts discover a new finding, it seems that we go back to square one.

There has been quite alot in the press and media recently about our general lack of vit D in our diets and the damage it's doing to us.

And much of this has been through us removing food from our diets which we have been told was bad for us..Can get very confusing at times.

I buy full fat milk for my husband as he will not drink any other.

I think now that I will be joining him and taking more of it too in my own diet again.

Gilly.

Oh, how just love reading all this.

When first diagnosed, the Lady GP was involved (yes the two of them collaborated so I always have a GCA GP on tap - they don't holiday together as they are the Senior's in the Practice).

Through my diet she went and said 'Brilliant', I nearly fell off the chair.

I eat and still do butter (proper butter), cheese (never processed), semi skimmed milk, cream, eggs, meat (all sorts and that includes offal, fish twice a week (all sorts but fresh if possible). Veggies, just love them. Bread yes, but no more than two slices per day and I change them round regularly. Pasta maybe once a month, rice - rarely. But when I go out to eat, boy its great I have all the things I don't eat at home. Chinese, Japanese, Italian et al.

Still ended up with Low Vit D, now corrected.

I often wonder if it was because I was brought up during the war and food was scarce, I had two great Uncles who were skilled poachers, a Grandfather who grew everything in both front and back garden, if you could not eat it or it was not companion planting it did not go in. Aunty who kept chickens and ducks. Government gave us cod liver oil, jill of milk everyday.

We were healthy - no food fads allowed. Everything in moderation is the key.

All depends on which aspect - if it's the calcium bit, low fat is pretty good, as I say, it doesn't need much, just a bit. What I regard as \"bad\" low fat are the diet foods that are sold as low fat - cakes and other baked goods, ready-meals and that sort of thing. If you look at the ingredients you will find that there are all sorts of things used instead of the fat that would normally be used - most of them carbohydrates or chemicals! Think about making a sponge cake - eggs, flour, sugar and butter, pretty much all natural things. Then look at the list of stuff in a bought cake. I find it quite horrifying. It's been discovered, for example, that you can make a quite successful cake with half the sugar usually quoted in a recipe. Or should I say re-discovered - during the war our mothers made all sorts of things with limited sugar rations. And their diet was actually healthier than anything since. There was a TV programme a bit back where they compared weight loss diets and the wartime one was better than some of the others. It's a question of adjusting your taste buds - takes 6 weeks until they have all been replaced so if you can last that long you'll have changed your tastes! The food of my childhood wasn't particularly sweet and I use very little sugar or salt nowadays. I don't buy cake more than about twice a year apart from the occasional piece of buckwheat cake up the mountain as lunch.

As for the yoghurt - I often mix a fat-free plain yog with full fat flavoured. Mainly because the yogs here can be even sweeter and yuckier than the ones in GB! And adding fruit or something to a Total 2% Greek yog - yum! Plus you know exactly what is in it. And remember - too much calcium taken \"with\" your steroids will also interfere with absorbing them. Look at the calcium content of your soya milk - it may well be that it's almost as good as the cow version. Plus you are taking calcium supplements so the amount you get from milk is less significant if you don't like the cow flavour. There's nothing that says your calcium has to be from milk - if there are forms of dairy where the taste is disguised that you do like, use them. Milk is just a culturally acceptable way of getting it - it's not actually that good for adult humans in large quantities because of the lactose and there really is a large percentage of the population that has a problem with drinking it, getting various degrees of an upset stomach from just wind to full-blown \"runs\" etc. Almost everyone can digest small volumes at a time - hence why I said that small amounts through the day is better than a large amount (milk on cereal, milky coffee at breakfast, latte on the way to work) at one time. I make my porridge with water and add cold milk - use much less that way.

Good luck with the next drop - hope your weather improves to something more like our forecast for the next week, :star: :cool: (am I blind or is there not a sun? a star and sunglasses will have to do)

EileenH

Well the sun is certainly shining here today !!

Its been a fantastic day and I did some gardenning today so I was really pleased It is nice to have some of my energy back !!

I always have semi skimmed milk now but i can remember years ago when we lived in Jersey the jugs of Jersey milk for breakfast thick with cream !!

As for the diet brands of cakes and meals etc Im with Eileen they are full of carbohydrates and additives and quite often ( Im thinking of a brand that makes dozens of different bars cakes and biscuits ) almost as high in calories One of my friends whose husband is diabetic gave him some of a pate that was made by a well known slimming club !! and his blood sugar went up really high She always says that if she is buying him any sort of processed food that the supermarkets value brands are surprisingly the best to get

mrs K is right everything in moderation I have meat fish chicken every week eat most vegetables love salads and fruit try not to eat much bread love my porridge for breakfast This last week i have definately overindulged !! I have only eaten at home once so this week Id better be more careful !!

Best wishes

Mrs G

Hi all....Gillian McKeith would be proud of us all \"you are what you eat\" :lol:

Before I was diagnosed with wheat intolerance and egg allergy, I was on a strict elimination diet-no sugar, salt, wheat, dairy or yeast products. It was qiute amazing doing my shopping as one does not realize how many \"forbidden\" items are added to pre-prepared foods and sauces etc.

I now make everything from scratch so that I know exactly what is in my food, and although all my other immediate family are over-weight and have high blood pressure and under-active thyroids, mine have always remained normal.

I rarely eat cakes or biscuits, don't like cream or butter, and eat a lot more fish than meat....so in that aspect my diet would definately differ from that of my Mum and siblings, so I am firmly of the opinion that diet has a strong bearing on health.

Sadly, the healthy lifestyle did NOT prevent PMR, but we can't avoid everything that life throws at us, despite our best efforts :roll: :cry:

Hope everyone had a lovely week-end. lovely and bright here but VERY cold!!

Love, Pauline

And the cherry on the top? I have just watched a programme on German TV (again!) where a medical researcher, a doctor, told us what our grannies used to say! That being a bit overweight according to current theories is actually good for us - if you are ill with swine flu, have an accident, develop cancer and need chemo, you have a bit of substance to fall back on. And that, in the long run, you will live longer as a result.

In the same programme they did a myth buster item: margarine is bad for your heart it now turns out, butter is better. The marg has \"bad fats\" due to the manufacturing process and requires chemical addition of things we get from butter. Artificial sweeteners are also bad - they kid the mouth that you are getting something sweet but the body knows better and sends you to get the sugar it now craves and needs after the artificial sweetener has told your conditioned body to secrete insulin (like Pavlov's dogs). And salt doesn't cause high BP except in a small proportion of people who have a specific problem. It increases the blood pressure reading because it makes us retain water so there is more fluid pushing on the walls of the arteries (and that is what creates blood pressure)!

And MrsG - I have found a lot of diabetics who believe they should eat \"diet\" products and, as you say, it is the worst thing they can do. I needed to lose weight (still do) but was horrified at the instructions from the dietician at the GP's practice when she told me I must eat what seemed to me to be an enormous amount of bread per day. I struggle to eat one slice - I can't eat a whole roll unless absolutely starving. And the portion sizes quoted on porridge oats packages I find mind-boggling - 40g usually, and I find 25g an ideal portion size.

Much of the rubbish talked about what we should or shouldn't eat is developed by ill-informed scientists and marketing managers working for companies looking to make a profit. Moderation in all things as MrsK says!

However - :redwine: :bubbly: increases the proportion of HDLs (the good cholesterol! Cheers

EileenH

Hi Eileen

Once again I agree with you on the usual topic :redwine: I think we are obsessed.

I was interested in what you said about sweeteners causing the body to secrete insulin. Does this mean that sweeteners actually cause you to gain weight?? isn't that what insulin does?? Forgive me - I don't quite understand what insulin does - but I'm sure you do.

Beev