Posts Tagged ‘anabolic’
Chronic Pain
This week I spoke to doctors and nurses who run Pain Clinics. The obvious connection is Vertebral Fractures requiring Kyphoplasty or Vertebroplasty. If you only do the procedure, you have not solved the problem. You must treat the Osteoporosis too, preferably with the Anabolic, Forteo, if you want to avoid further fractures.
Vitamin D is the other connection. Successful treatment of chronic pain often requires enough Vitamin D3 to bring the 25-hydroxy Vitamin D level to at least 40ng/ml. This is not yet widely known. Not all clinics are testing for Vitamin D levels. They should be!
No Human Osteosarcoma Linked to Forteo
A reader has asked about bone cancer and Forteo.
Osteosarcoma is a rare bone cancer. Lilly has endowed a 15-year independent study (suggested by the FDA) of all Osteosarcoma patients in Cancer Registries, looking for individuals who have taken Forteo. The halfway point results from June 2004 through Sept 2011 were published in JBMR in Dec 2012. Of the 1448 persons who had Osteosarcoma during that time period, not one had taken Forteo.
The “black box” warning on the Forteo (Teriparatide) label refers to studies of rats, not humans. These rats very commonly get osteosarcoma without any medication. The rats were given doses 3 to 20 times the human dose for the equivalent of 70 human years. Rats’ bones never stop growing. Growing bones are particularly vulnerable to osteosarcoma. Humans are different from rats.
Bone Not “Good Enough” = Anabolic Forteo
Bone that has Fractured = Bone NOT Good Enough = Bone which requires the Anabolic, Forteo. Any fracture, especially vertebral compression fracture, can mean that the bone is NOT Good Enough. A Falling Bone Mineral Density (BMD) can mean that the bone is NOT Good Enough.
Orthopedic Surgeons see patients because their bone has fractured. Often this is a Fragility Fracture – a fracture due to a fall from standing height. I treat osteoporosis because of the patients I saw as an orthopedic surgeon. My orthopedic training makes Fracture Prevention my #1 goal.