Hi Jean, welcome and thanks for sharing your story, we're soo glad you've joined us and found us as well.  If you ever need any advice on how to use the site just email me, I'd be happy to help make it easier.

I took Forteo and did really well on it without any negative side effects.  The injection is so simple and nothing like a regular injection with a syringe.  Forteo comes in a pre-metered dose pen as I'm sure you are aware of.  If you'd like to see a video on how easy it is to do just email on that as well.

Remember the negative stories get much much more coverage, on the Internet, than the positive do, so keep that in mind. Those doing well don't have the time or reason to post since they are probably out living their lives with very few problems.  Also, for some reason us humans gravitate to the negative, which I hope will change real soon.

People who experienced belly flab from Forteo found that injecting it into the thigh didn't cause this.  I personally think it's easier to inject into the thigh anyway, easier to see, hurts less than stomach injection, even though the injection rarely hurts and if it does it so minimal.  Don't compare it to blood draws or other injections it's nothing like that and there's really only three simple steps:  clean area with alcohol wipe and wait to dry, check pen for any particles--because if you see this you need a new pen.   You then attach needle, pull out the plunger, insert the needle about a 1/16th of an inch into the skin and push the plunger and that's it.  I can't tell you how many people worry needlessly about this injection and find once they do it how simple and almost pain free it is.  You can only use the pen for 28 days *even if* there is some med left in the cartridge, and dispose in a sharps container.  Most Drs have a service where you can take your used pens so they'll dispose them.  If your Dr doesn't have this all cities have medical waste places you can go to on certain days of the month for this.

Don't forget to contact me about the video, if you're interested and anything else you can think of.

I hope you do as well as I did.  I went from -3.6 spine to normal bone density (spine) in one year after starting it.  I didn't have an initial hip score to compare to, but I'm now in the osteopenia range there, and it had to have been worse than what it is now.

Also join us any time at our Question of the Week, which you can find here.  We'd love to hear from you and all others!!  We take great pride in our ability to provide helpful info to help all members so they can deal with their individual issues with osteoporosis or osteopenia from our moderators all the way up to our upperlevel staff.

One of my favorite quote's and one I try to live by, is from Thich Nhat Hanh: "Life is so hard, how can we be anything but kind?"

Pam (community moderator/leader)