Treatments of Osteoporosis
Osteoporosis
Osteoporosis is a disorder that causes your bones to break down quicker, making you susceptible to fractures and falls. Treatment often includes a combination of medical drugs and lifestyle changes. The best way to prevent the occurrence of osteoporosis is to observe proper medication plans.
Bones are living tissues that break down continuously and automatically replace themselves with new content. This makes them become more brittle, less dense, and more porous, which results in weaker bones that are highly prone to breaks or fractures. No exact cure is available. The focus of osteoporosis treatments is to protect and build up your bones.
Risk Factors
Many people have elevated bone mass densities when they’re young. But as they age, they lose old bones at a rapid rate that their bodies can replace. As a result, older people are at a greater risk for osteoporosis.
Women are also highly vulnerable to osteoporosis since they typically possess thinner bones as compared to men. Estrogen helps in protecting bones. Women who are undergoing menopause experience a drastic reduction in estrogen levels that leads to fragile bones.
Other possible risk factors include:
- Smoking cigarettes
- Malnutrition
- Certain conditions like multiple myeloma, rheumatoid arthritis, and malaria
- Taking medications like barbiturates, steroids, and proton-pump inhibitors
Osteoporosis Medications
The most effective way to prevent the development of osteoporosis is to utilize prescription medications. Such drugs include:
1. Bisphosphonates
Bisphosphonates are the commonest osteoporosis drug treatments. Several options are available such as Alendronate. It’s an oral medication, which people take once every week. Ibandronate is a drug used on a monthly basis. It’s prescribed as an injection or oral tablet that’s taken four times each day. Zoledronic acid or Reclast is a kind of treatment that is solely taken as intraveneous injections once a year.
2. Antibodies
Denosumab is an antibody, which connects to a protein responsible for your body’s bone absorption process. This antibody suppresses bone absorption. It also maintains optimal bone density. It is available as intravenous injections that are given to patients after every 6 months. Despite being highly efficient in alleviating the symptoms associated with osteoporosis, a variety of side effects can also be experienced like fatigue, skin irritation, bone fractures that rarely occur, spasms, muscle stiffness, and excessive sweating.
3. Hormone Therapy
Menopausal women have a higher risk of bone loss. Estrogen plays an important role in the protection of bones, and the production of sex hormones declines during menopause. For such women, hormone therapy is a reliable treatment option. Typically, medical specialists don’t utilize it as an initial defense treatment since it elevates your risk of blood clots, stroke, breast cancer, and heart attack.
Types of Hormonal Treatments
There are three types of hormonal treatments available. These are selective estrogen modulators, thyrocalcitonin, and parathyroid hormone.
- Selective estrogen modulators recreate the bone-preserving effect. Raloxifene is obtainable as oral tablets that are taken on a daily basis.
- Thyrocalcitonin is a hormone that is produced by the thyroid gland. It’s helpful in regulating the level of calcium in the body. Physicians use synthetic calcitonin or thyrocalcitonin to cure spinal osteoporosis in patients who cannot take bisphosphonates. It can as well relieve the pain in certain people who have spinal compression fractures.
- Parathyroid hormone is a type of hormone that controls the level of phosphates and calcium in the body. Such treatments promote healthy bone growth.
Lifestyle Changes
Be sure to increase your intake of vitamin D and calcium in order to prevent severe bone loss. Foods that are highly enriched with calcium are soy products, dairy products, enriched grains or breads, and green leafy vegetables.
