Harrison,
Thanks for posting the Fosamax article here. It's good to know what the side effects to these medications are and that for some they can be severe.

Sure. I have to say, it's the first time I've heard of these serious complications! I know some folks here use it, that's why I posted it.

Any way, let's hope the risks aren't too high for the people here that take it. http://adrsupport.org/groupee_common...icon_frown.gif

I noticed that there is a warning about this on the Actonel patient insert and asked my dentist about it: he indicated that the risk of necrosis occurs only when you also have oral surgery. It is not clear from this article whether the patients/potential clients involved had had oral surgery or whether the necrosis just occurred concomitant with Fossamax ingestion.

I just wanted to possibly correct my previous post: I spoke with my physician this week and asked him about this: he did not agree with my dentist that the osteonecrosis occurred only with oral surgery but he did say that most of the cases involved IV administration of Fosimax and there has only been one case reported in the US associated with Actonel. I also asked about the eye inflammation affecting vision from this class of drugs, which was mentioned in the article posted by freshfig on alternative approaches to building bone density: he was unaware of such an effect.

There is a posting on another forum about a patient who died from long term Fosamax use. They did get necrosis of the jaw and ended up dying from stomach cancer caused by the irritation from the medication. Within 2 hours of taking my first Fosamax pill my stomach was burning. That was the end of biophosphates for me.