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Bisphosphonates Linked to Severe Bone and Muscle Pain, FDA Warns
Bisphosphonates may cause "severe and sometimes incapacitating" musculoskeletal pain, the FDA warned on Monday.
Patients may develop intense pain within days, months, or years of starting treatment, with some reporting complete symptom relief after stopping the drug. Although prescribing information for bisphosphonates already cautions about musculoskeletal pain, the warning may be overlooked by healthcare providers, the FDA says.
The agency notes that the severe pain differs from symptoms (e.g., fever, chills, bone pain) that sometimes occur during the initial administration of intravenous bisphosphonates or once-weekly or once-monthly oral formulations. Those initial symptoms, according to the FDA, generally resolve within several days.
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Published in Physician's First Watch January 8, 2008