Taking Stock: Asking About Side Effects

Thinning Bones

Perhaps you have just had a bone scan that showed your bones to be thinning, or you may have had many broken bones over the years. Perhaps you have been taking antiepileptic medicines for several years and are concerned that they may be affecting your bones. Several of these medicines may affect bone health when used over an extended period of time.

Talk with your doctor about your drug’s potential to cause this effect to see whether you should have a bone scan.

Questions may include:

• Are my thinning bones the result of my medication?
• Am I taking an inappropriate amount of medication? Or could I be taking it incorrectly?
• Could my medication’s generic version eliminate this side effect?
• Would calcium supplements and diet help avoid this problem?
• If I have osteoporosis, is there a treatment that might stop or even reverse this process?

This side effect, though possible in all ages, is of particular concern for elderly women with epilepsy. According to a study published in June 2004 in the medical journal Neurology, "Continuous anti-epileptic drug use in elderly women is associated with increased rates of bone loss at the calcaneus and hip. If unabated, the rate of hip bone loss among continuous anti-epileptic drug users is sufficient to increase the risk of hip fracture by 29% over five years among women age 65 years and older." A separate study, also published in Neurology in May 2002, said that the longer epilepsy patients took medication, and the more medication they took, the lower the bone mass density.

Read about other possible side effects...