Osteoporosis Drugs – Do
we need them?
Hi Tessa: My physio requested an x-ray on my legs. The results were my normal leg bone was okay
but the bone of my polio leg was very thin - between normal and osteoporosis.
My GP advised me not to do any physiotherapy till the bone gets stronger. He has put me on an osteoporosis medication. E.
H.
Answer: You won't be able to do anything about the
thinness of the bone on your polio leg.
All polios have thinner bones where the muscles are weak. This is visible for all polios on x-ray.
Bones need muscle pull to grow. After you had polio, the parts that were
affected by polio will not have grown much thicker and often are shorter too.
That is why polios end up with leg length discrepancies ie a limb shorter than
the other side. It happens with ribs, pelvis, face, arms - anywhere people have
paralysis or weakness as children. This
doesn't happen if you have polio as an adult as the bones have already finished
growing but adult polios still end up with osteoporosis in affected areas
because muscle pull is needed to maintain bone density and you won't increase
bone density without muscle pull. So
taking anything to increase your bone density is not going to work I'm
afraid. In fact you can end up with
fractures (particularly of the jaw) from taking these drugs that doctors put
you on, like Fosamax - see the PPNWA March 2008 newsletter.
However, you can lessen increasing osteoporosis by making sure you have
enough magnesium (not calcium). If you
are low in magnesium - ie getting cramps, tight muscles, muscle aches, then to
fix these problems, your body ends up having to take magnesium from the only
place there is extra ie the bone. So
every time this happens it creates a small hole in the bone (called
osteoporosis) where a bone cell has been removed to get the magnesium for the
muscle to work again. Magnesium allows the muscle to relax so calcium can come
back again to make the muscle go tight (work) again. This is normal muscle action.
To make new bone cells the body needs gelatine to make cartilage then
all the other minerals, including magnesium, plus boron (borax - lick off end
of finger) to cement the other minerals together to mature the developing bone
cell. Most people in WA have enough
calcium. Taking extra calcium makes the
muscles go tight and sore.
So you won't make the thin bone any thicker and you are unlikely to
increase the bone density in polio affected areas but you can stop it getting
worse by taking magnesium and borax.
More people are testing low now for Vitamin D. Vit D is needed for bones too so get some
exposure to the sun without sunscreen and/or take some Vit D tablets (Vit D is
also in cod liver oil capsules) Tessa