Another great article.
I have been lucky enough to be in an exercise study for the last 3 years funded by Susan G Komen and The American Cancer, and most of the women in our study have maintained their bone scans, no osteoporosis!
The exercise at first was hard, I was taking 4 Advils after and icing but now I ache if I miss a class.
I would recommend looking for classes from hospital/cancer centers. Some gym classes are not for the over 50 year old and won't work the bones correctly.
I went through early menopause at age 40. The doctors didn't believe me until I demanded a blood test. It came back positive. (told you so) I was put on prempro which worked like magic! I should have known this was too good to be true. As my bad luck would have it,last year I underwent surgery for breast cancer followed by radiation and chemo. I was instructed to discontinue the prempro. After surgery and radiation I was put on femara (anti-hormone). So now I am going through menopause for the second time! Really? This is adding insult to injury. I am puting on my game face but lately I have grown weary of all of this. I believe that there is a connection of cancer and osteoarthritis. Yesterday I was walking in to my grandson's school and I missstepped and twisted my ankle. I fell pretty hard. My ankle is fractured, I chipped/bruised my elbow and my whole side hurts.The doctor said it is worse because of the osteo arthritis. I have had arthritis since the age of 2. Get routine mamograms. Take care of your bones.
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BOY can I relate to this. Since I am two and a half years out post chemo and radiation following a lumpectomy, and two years on Tamoxifin, they did a bone density on me and it seems I have developed Osteopenia! So it is 2000 mg of calcium and 800 of Vitamin D regimin right now. Boniva was looked at, but, it is not good for women who have had chemo or radiation! What a catch 22!
I never heard about Boniva not being OK for women who've had chemo or radiaiton. That's a HUGE consideration. Did your doctor tell you that? Just wondering where the info. comes from... Best of luck getting that bone density back up! PJH
I went to three different websites and researched Boniva and all the variations of that genre of drug, and without exception, there was a paragraph stating that it should not be used by breast cancer patients who have undergone radiation and chemotherapy.
Well, that's interesting, as there are lots of oncologists prescribing Boniva for breast cancer patients who've had radiation and/or chemo... Perhaps you're talking about the raised risk of jaw osteonecrosis? The risk of "dead jaw" is tiny compared to the risk of osteoporosis, so most women choose the "lesser evil" and go ahead and take the bisphosphonate. Anyway, thanks for sharing your info. here. As I said - interesting. PJH
You are correct. I looked up Foxsamax and the reference to chemo and radiation was in relation to the jaw (being more susceptible).