Popular heartburn drugs linked to hip fractures

This one worries me. My husband has been taking one of these meds for a year or so now. He's also been on crutches for the past 3 months - maybe coincidence, maybe not. Initially he was diagnosed with osteonecrosis of the knee (literally death of the bone) and told that he had a 10% chance of healing if he stayed off it for 6-8 weeks. The alternative was likely to be total knee replacement. I can tell you, he was in excruciating pain and not looking forward to the first of quite possibly several artificial joints at the ripe old age of 50.

We've since had a second opinion, and the diagnosis was changed to bone marrow edema. His most recent MRI's show improvement, and we're very grateful that he will probably heal, albeit over a year or so. We've been trying to figure out how he managed to get into this condition, and the best we can come up with is that he fell on it in the spring and that it has slowly (largely imperceptibly) deteriorated to the point where he couldn't walk on it by mid-September. This is pretty distressing, since he had no warning of such a severe injury. This lastest news about the heartburn meds really makes me wonder whether the normal healing process of the bone was impaired by his heartburn meds. It would go a long way to explaining this stealth injury.

Living with a spouse with GERD gives me an indirect appreciation of heartburn pain. It's no picnic. However, considering what he has endured in pain and immobility in recent months, I doubt he'd trade heartburn relief for widespread joint problems.

I hate to ask, but have you guys been checked for Heliobacter Pylori?

The reason I ask is that I went through a long list of OTC and other medications for heartburn nothing would touch, and accidentally found something which provided relief within 24 hours. Not short term relief, but for a few weeks.

I smoked cigarettes up until a week ago, and would be in situations where a cigarette presented a serious safety hazard. So I took up smokeless tobacco, the kind that comes in little pouches. I was drinking coffee and had one of those in my mouth and washed the juice down with the coffee. Within 24 hours no heartburn. None.

YMMV, but this worked.

I'm not selling anything, just saying what worked for me. It is not too much to think the nicotine in tobacco juice might interfere with H. Pylori, and do so a lot cheaper than many commercially available meds out there.

I don't think so.

AIDS research is good. Eliminating the things and activities that cause AIDS would be better, but researching a cure for people that ail from it is good. I say this because I am sure that some people have inadvertently contracted HIV through no fault of their own and they deserve treatment. Homosexuals and people that shoot up heroin don't deserve treatment.

Are sure you a not green monkey?

I was treated with antibiotics about 7-8 years ago. I suffered chronic ulcer attacks...2-3 times a year. Following the treatment I haven't had another ulcer attack but my Gerd is as bad as ever. Nothing touches the heartburn...Protonix or Prilosec are the only things I've tried that help.

Hmmm. I was checked for H pylori, too, and also got a negative back, but the tobacco juice works every time if I have a relapse, usually once a year or so.

I was using S____Bandits, so maybe the wintergreen had an effect, or maybe there is another bug besides H. Pylori out there.

I had had heartburn which Maalox, Tums (extra strength), nothing OTC would touch at the time, not even for an instant.

Just hoping my experience would help someone, 'cause I know it is miserable. I had the 'burn ofor over a year until I accidentally got rid of it.

But, I do not drink alcohol, coffee is my main beverage (black, but low acid Sumatran). I do, however eat freely: Garlic, Jalapenos, and those little yellow hot peppers in the jar with no ill effects (now--not then), and do so on an almost daily basis.

I don't care what the side affects are. I don't have anymore problems with heartburn and I and convinced that my Pops would still be alive, had he had Nexium in his time.

Hip fractures in men, however, result in a 31 percent mortality rate at one year after fracture versus a rate of 17 percent in women.

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