Osteopenia

[KnottedYet]

Lifetime drug use that may long term make your bones more brittle.

Sounds like a great thing to be encouraging lots of people to do.

Yup. "If it ain't broke yet, don't Fosamax it."
(send 'em to me instead... evil laughter from the physical therapy department... mooo-heh-heh...)

ETA: the osteopenia/disease/drug thing reminds me of when docs used to freak at healthy women who were "anemic" during pregnancy and throw iron pills and dire warnings at them. Until someone finally realized low blood iron was normal (and desirable) as the body sequestered iron. I was anemic earlier this year and it was horrible, I was miserable. Nothing like the "anemia" I <didn't> have while preggers. Thank goodness my OB had the same stance as these bone docs; if the patient is healthy and has no symptoms, don't treat a test result. "Treat patients, not test results" is something I hear a lot.

Osteoporosis, now... that s*cks. I've worked some desperately debilitated elderly ladies, and darn tootin' I want them to be taking Fosamax. Fragile bones are bad news.