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BACK PAIN, LOWER BACK submitted by SAE on Tuesday, April 22, 2008, 11:57:07
What The Doctor Didn't Tell Me
My doctor was adamant that I should take a popular drug for osteoporosis because testing showed that I had osteopenia, a bone-loss condition that suggests one might be on the way to developing osteoporosis. I am very sensitive to medications so I asked about side effects. He said that if one followed the directions there should be none.
What I Discovered
From the beginning I had an aversion to this drug and dreaded the mornings I had to take it, but I dutifully followed the directions and forced myself to take it regularly. Around that same time I began having nagging lower back pain, something I'd never experienced before. I thought I'd just strained my back muscles somehow, but over the weeks the pain got worse and worse. My chiropractor, who I go to for a neck injury, was baffled as to what could be causing it and confirmed that it was nothing he'd seen signs of in me before. The back pain grew worse over a few months to the point that I could not longer hike, do yoga, workout, clean the house, and finally, even get up out of a chair without difficulty. I was fast becoming a cripple. One day while reading the paper, I was about to turn the page, when my eye caught on a full-page ad for another of the popular osteoporosis drugs. Because it was such a large ad the warnings box was quite large too and what had caught my eye was the words “lower back pain.” It was listed as a side effect. I hopped on the Internet to check this out and found dozens of similar reports of severe incapacitating back pain in people taking the same medication I was. I called my doctor. He said he had never encountered such a side effect. I dug out the tissue-paper thin sheets inside the box the meds come in and read through the pages of tiny pale print … and sure enough … there it was buried in there. Possible side effect: severe lower back pain. Well, I quit taking the drug right away. But the posts of others reported it took months to recover and some people had not over a year later. So I was very nervous about my prospects. Fortunately my back got slowing better and within 3 months I had recovered. Meanwhile I told my chiropractor who has since identified 4 other patients with unexplained lower back pain on this same medication, all of whom have recovered or improved since cutting back or stopping the medication. The same was true for a friend of ours whose back pain had become so bad that he was close to being unable to do his job. I am so grateful to have discovered this and to be able to share it with others in case it might help them avoid the months of pain and disability I suffered through.
Posted under topic(s): Back Pain, lower back, Osteoporosis
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