My mother has severe spinal lumbar stenosis and osteoarthristis of the spine. She also has significant osteoporosis. Her primary care physician and a pain management specialist strongly recommended that she take a boniva to treat her osteoporosis. My mother reluctantly agreed to start Boniva and took her first dose about a week ago. As of two days ago, she is reporting increased heaviness and pain in her lumbar spine. I am wondering whether this is a side effect of the Boniva. My mother took a single dose of actonel about a year ago and reported similar problems. At the time she took the actonel, her physician did not test for low blood calcium. Subsequent testing revealed that my mother did have low blood calcium, which has since been improved with calcium and vitamin D supplementation. Even with presumably adequate bllod calcium levels, my mother is now reporting a worsening of bone pain in her lower back approximately one week after starting Boniva. Her doctor is quite insistent that she must take something for the osteoporosis and claims that most side-effects are in the patient's head. Is it possible that the Boniva is causing this new back pain? If so, what can my mother do about it, and is there any other effective treatment for osteoporosis?
- Find
Hi darith1, welcome and thanks for your question. I'm sorry to hear about your mothers problems with pain and her severe stenosis and osteoarthritis.
One of the listed side effects of Boniva is bone, joint and muscle pain. Here's a link on the drug from HealthSquare that explains it. See the section on "Precautions and Side Effects." I'm not sure what the solution would be, but I would have the Dr. check for any worsening of the stenosis since both that and OA can cause this type of pain. Is there any chance that she may have a new injury that made the stenosis worse?
Since Boniva can cause this type of pain, I would ask the Dr. if she could try some other treatment since she already has to deal with these other two spinal problems. There is another treatment that doesn't have these side effects that you could ask her Dr. about. It's called Fosteum and is used for both osteoporosis and osteopenia, but can't be used if she has has any allergy to soy or previous cancer problems. The ingredients in it are: zinc, D3 and genistein (form of soy). Here's a link on it that you can read and ask the Dr. what he or she thinks. It's FDA approved and has to be obtained through a Dr.'s rx, but it might be something to consider. The clinical trial article listed in the first paragraph, has been moved to another link and the new link is in the last "comment" after the end of the article.
Good luck finding something that won't have these side effects. I don't know if you can do this, but it might help if you could go with your mom to the Dr. and explain the problems she's having in the hopes the Dr. will listen to a second opinion on this and not have it dismissed as something conjured up in her head
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Hi again, the correction I mentioned on the clinical trial is in the 1 paragraph on the second page, of the article, and the new link is in the last comment.