Right, but given that people who have had their jaw bones radiated are vulnerable to ORN anyway, it strikes me that for those folks, bisphosphonates might be really risky. Does it seem the same to you, Jerry? This is an issue for me for multiple reasons. First, all the women in my family have had osteoporosis and both my grandmothers had more than one hip fracture as a result. Second, if god forbid my breast cancer should ever recur in my bones these drugs are a primary way of treating that. And I worry that I may not be able to be treated in either case because of the relationship between bisphosphonates and osteonecrosis of the jaw.

My aunt (a nurse for decades) has done some reading up on this too since she was prescribed bisphosphonates last year and apprently the way they work is they keep the body from sloughing off dead bone cells. So the bones test at having more bone volume because of this. But living bone tissue is not increased. And evidently as far as she can tell, there is no direct research on whether bones whose density is increased through this method are actually less brittle. And you have to wonder if they are since what is being retained is not living tissue (which is probably also why osteonecrosis can occur so easily).

If I have any of this wrong, please correct me. Again, I am not a doctor, just a reasonably smart person trying to learn as much as I can about somehting that may affect my future.

Nelie