# Bonivia $$$$



## manfred (Dec 21, 2005)

Wife was diagnosed with osteoporosis .Went to fill the scrip. $425 for 4 tablets but insurance company wouldnt go for it until talking with Doc more. More that $100 per tablet?


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## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

That's about right. Figure that the 150 mg monthly dose of Boniva will be $100 to $125 per pill in the USA. That hurts, I know. Your insurance company will most likely put pressure on your doctor to prescribe Fosamax instead, since it basically does the same thing and has a generic available in the USA. The problem with Fosamax is that it's less convenient to take than monthly Boniva.

Let me explain that. Taking Fosamax once a week instead of Boniva once a month doesn't sound like that big of a hassle, but there's more to taking a dose of this stuff than just swallowing a pill. You normally take it first thing in the morning. When you take the pill you must stay sitting upright for a certain amount of time, and you shouldn't take it with anything except enough water to get the pill down, then nothing by mouth (not even coffee or tea) until that time period is up; 1/2 hour for the weekly Fosamax, 1 hour for monthly Boniva. Your wife will really appreciate only being inconvenienced that way once a month rather than every week.

Before you do anything else, go to the following link and get your coupon for 1 free pill, then have your doctor write you a prescription for 1 pill and take it to your local pharmacy.

https://www.boniva.com/myboniva/register_step1.aspx?WT=joinbon

Like most everything else, we order our Boniva from overseas. It's the same pill people all over Europe take in place of name brand Boniva (it's the same medication, it's just the generic), but it only costs $6.25/pill for the 150 mg monthly dose.

http://www.alldaychemist.com/226__Ibandronic-Acid

The $25/order shipping fee that alldaychemist.com charges is a killer, so feel free to order it 3 months, 6 months, or even a year in advance if you want to. Be sure check prices for any other meds you take. You can order as much or as many meds as you like for the same $25/order fee.

Since your wife has osteoporosis, you might also take note of the fact that alldaychemist.com sells a generic Evista for $11/month. That's the standard drug used to slow the progression of osteoporosis, and your doctor will almost certainly be prescribing it when your wife is done with Boniva (normally 3 to 5 years). Evista is about $120/month in the USA, and even the Medicare Part D copay for it is typically $30/month. Trust me, $11/month for Evista is a God-send. Check it out!

You can send them a prescription if you want to, but alldaychemist.com will ship your meds right out without a prescription to save that hassle. Just leave the prescriber info alone and you're fine.

Good luck!


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## manfred (Dec 21, 2005)

Navada thanks so much for the info. Already printed out the voucher!


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## sss3 (Jul 15, 2007)

I can't tell you how much you've helped me.


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## springvalley (Jun 23, 2009)

I have heard some bad things about this pill from some women. Check it out, PLEASE. > Marc


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## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

springvalley said:


> I have heard some bad things about this pill from some women. Check it out, PLEASE. > Marc


The mechanism of how it works is somewhat controversial because the quality of bone mass that's being built isn't the best. However the medical community is still behind it. I'm guessing that they would rather see poor bone mass than low bone mass.

The object of taking Boniva is to prevent fractures. That would include both accidental fractures and spontaneous fractures, such as compression fractures of the spine. My 85 year-old friend has suffered both types. She has lost 4 inches in height from compression fractures. She has also broken her hip and her foot in the last 18 months. She is about as advanced as it gets. Needless to say, she gets all the pain meds she wants.

We tried building "good" bone mass with Forteo and Miacalcin, but there was no measurable change in bone density. All things considered, we've resigned ourselves to the idea that whatever she gets out of Boniva in the first 3 years is better than nothing, which is all she has without it.

It has been shown that 3 to 5 years on Boniva will lower the chances of having a fracture, so that's worth something. I'm not against that. But if it is used for too long the bones can become brittle, actually increasing the chances of fracture. That needs to be avoided.

Here is my advice about Boniva. If your doctor wants you to take it then I would follow his advice. After being on Boniva for 3 years you should start discussing going back to Evista with your doctor. If you've been on Boniva for 5 years or more and your doctor wants you to continue taking it, I would discuss the matter with another doctor.

******

PS - Sorry for going on and on about this stuff, but this is what I do all day every day. Living with someone with advanced osteoporosis really makes you do your homework, as well as accept the realities of the disease. On the upside, it's not life threatening. On the downside, it's painful and difficult to get around. In my friend's case, she has a strong heart and clean arteries. As miserable as she might be, there is no reason why she couldn't live to be 100.

When we bought the 4-br house we live in now I, of course, thought that we would have our own rooms. That didn't work out. She is going to need someone with her 24/7 from here on out, so we're back to sharing the same room again. If I get run over by a bus tomorrow I know she'll be in a nursing home within weeks, either by not being able to keep track of her meds or because of a fall.

Fortunately, since I work online my career is compatible with taking care of her.


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## Harry Chickpea (Dec 19, 2008)

DW was on Fosamax for a while. O.M.G. If we had known then what we know now, we would have avoided it like the plague. It almost ruined the juncture between her esophagus and stomach. It got so painful she had to sit up to try to sleep. She eventually stopped it, then happened to mention this to another woman, and was told how it had taken her almost two years to recover from the side effects of the same drug. I know osteoporosis can be severe, but this drug is a choice between the devil and the deep blue sea. If there are alternatives, I would suggest exploring them FULLY before attempting this pill.


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## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

Harry Chickpea said:


> DW was on Fosamax for a while. O.M.G. If we had known then what we know now, we would have avoided it like the plague. It almost ruined the juncture between her esophagus and stomach. It got so painful she had to sit up to try to sleep. She eventually stopped it, then happened to mention this to another woman, and was told how it had taken her almost two years to recover from the side effects of the same drug. I know osteoporosis can be severe, but this drug is a choice between the devil and the deep blue sea. If there are alternatives, I would suggest exploring them FULLY before attempting this pill.


Yes, and that's why people who take it need to stay sitting upright for the recommended amount of time. You need to keep that stuff from refluxing up.


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## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

Forgive me, but I have one more major point to make about the treatment of osteoporosis.

Normally (in truth, always) when Boniva therapy is started doctors will discontinue Evista. If you understand how Evista and Boniva work you will recognize that they work in entirely different ways, so there is no logical reason why they should interfere with each other.



*Evista* is hormone replacement therapy (HRT). It works by maintaining the proper hormone levels that promote new bone growth. Evista can't reverse bone mass loss caused by osteoporosis, and it does not cure osteoporosis, but it does significantly slow-down the progression of the disease.
*Boniva* works by interfering with the process where old bone cells are removed from bones. The idea is that if you don't remove old bone cells, more bone mass will stay in place. Boniva is not HRT, and will not interfere with HRT.
Knowing the above, I asked my friend's doctor why she was discontinuing Evista when Boniva was prescribed. I reasoned that discontinuing HRT was going to allow new bone cell production to drop. It seemed to me that 3 to 5 years without Evista was going to hurt my friend.

Her doctor told me that a lot of doctors felt the same way I did about it. But she said that it has not been demonstrated that the benefit of taking both Boniva and Evista is worth the expense, and until that was established no prescription insurance was going to cover both medications at the same time. Remember, it's about $125/month for Boniva, then another $125/month for Evista (USA pharmacy prices of course).

I told her doctor that I didn't intend to submit either Boniva or Evista to any insurance company, since I intended to get both overseas and pay cash for the medications. Her doctor told me to go ahead and do it then. Since we get Boniva for $6.25/month and Evista for $11/month (overseas prices), I feel that I'm giving my friend every advantage possible and still keeping the cost at $17.25/month.

Since we have the opportunity to get medications totally independent of insurance, continuing Evista during Boniva therapy is an option that you might talk to your doctor about. You really don't want to give-up that 3 to 5 years of HRT if you don't have to.


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## Fourthistles (Feb 24, 2003)

Please, please,please talk to an oral surgeon before deciding to take this medication. There is a real risk, although the pharmaceutical community downplays it, of bone death in the lower jaw for which there is NO treatment.
These cases are just beginning to suface, usually without any warning and often in areas of the jaw where teeth were extracted. You need to weigh the risks against the benefits before taking this drug. Your physician may not give you all the facts. I have been a Certified Dental Assistant for 34 years, taught dental assisting at college for 21 years, and currently work in a VA dental clinic where we have seen several cases of jaw bone necrosis (death) in patients who have taken these drugs for several years.


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## ldc (Oct 11, 2006)

I was literally bedridden from taking Fosomax for 5 months at age 45; I had lost height in my 30's, and at that time - about 10 yrs ago - there wasn't much else available. Fosomax, Boniva, Actonel, and the injectable Reclast, all have very serious health risks that last far beyond the time period in which they are taken. I believe the first 3 meds are now banned in the EU. The rest of the world doesn't look at osteoporosis as a calcium problem, but as a mixed mineral and bone building problem. Nevada had a lot of good info in his posts. I personally know two women who got the necrotic jaw bone problem from this family of drugs. I had a 30% improvement over a three year period with Nature's Life Liquid Calcium, w Magnesium and Vit D3, which is available at health food stores in quart plastic bottles. (Am not aligned in any way with that company!) This improvement has been measured by bone density tests every 2 to 3 years that I pay for. My endochronologist was stunned; I also do heavy resistance weights 3x/week, and am now 55 yrs old. I had taken calcium tablets w Vit D since I was 11 years old when I grew 5 inches in one year (which is unusual for girls). The pediatrician suggested these two for me and my mom, but 40 years later, neither of us had absorbed any calcium from that form. My mother took Fosomax for 10 yrs (no longer recommended) and while she was dying this past January, her bones were breaking as she was bedridden at the very end of her life for 3 weeks at 83. Evista is only given to post menopausal women, by the way, but mant have success with it. (I was only 35 when the dr discovered I'd already lost an inch in height, and I was still a distance runner and swimmer, hardcore gardener at that time). And another aside, oddly enough, the statistics show no difference in broken bones between milk drinkers and non-milk drinkers. Best wishes to Mrs. manfred in O.P. This is a very tricky business, ldc


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## Harry Chickpea (Dec 19, 2008)

To continue with what ldc has said, I have been telling people for YEARS that we are crazy about calcium in this country, but totally miss that magnesium and other minerals MUST be in balance for it to be beneficial. The problem is that magnesium depletion goes undetected with tests unless it is at a life threatening stage. I read a research article a long while back that when the body starts shedding minerals, it sheds magnesium before going after calcium, and that proper magnesium levels could limit osteoporosis. This was a while back, before I kept good notes and before the internet, so I regret I can't give a cite.


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## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

ldc said:


> I was literally bedridden from taking Fosomax for 5 months at age 45; I had lost height in my 30's, and at that time - about 10 yrs ago - there wasn't much else available. Fosomax, Boniva, Actonel, and the injectable Reclast, all have very serious health risks that last far beyond the time period in which they are taken.


Your case is extreme. I'm wondering if your problem was something other than osteoporosis, since osteoporosis is normally associated with post-menopausal hormone levels. You shouldn't have had that in your 30s, unless perhaps you had a hysterectomy at a very young age.

About the American fixation about calcium, it is important to have ample calcium (as well as D3 and others) available in your body when you take most osteoporosis treatment medications. However, osteoporosis is believed to be caused by changing hormone levels, not a calcium deficiency.

My friend has been diagnosed with osteoporosis for nearly 20 years and has stayed away from taking Fosomax, Boniva, & Actonel up until now. As I said above, we were pursuing better alternatives (Forteo & Miacalcin). Unfortunately those did not work, and now at age 85 the fractures are becoming too common of an occurrence. Begrudgingly, she started Boniva last spring. This is really all she has left to try.

Let me be perfectly frank about the consequences of osteoporosis; osteoporosis has reduced my friend to an invalid. We keep a collapsible wheel chair in the car because she can't walk any distance to speak of. She goes to the bathroom on her own, but if we go to a casino to eat, go to the supermarket, or go to Walmart I have to roll her in the wheel chair. She is badly bent over and we don't dare go out without giving her a Lortab first.

Yes, taking the class of drugs that Boniva is in has risks that need to be considered, but not treating osteoporosis aggressively carries it's own risks. Your doctor is there to help you weigh those risks. He will have people in all stages of the disease in mind, as well as your best interests.


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