Hi, MelodyJane, and welcome to this forum of nice people. I hope you will be encouraged here. I've never used Forteo and don't know anything about it; however, here is the weblink to askapatient.com where you can read comments posted by patients who have actually used Forteo.
http://www.askapatient.com/viewrating.asp?drug=21318&name=FORTEO

One doctor prescribed once-a-month Actonel for me, but I was only able to take one dose of it because of the horrible side effects I experienced. That was when another doctor put me on a supplement regimen that has worked well for me. My dexa scores really improved after using the supplements for 3 years--with no side effects. Best wishes to you for finding what will work best for you.

From what little I know Forteo is a synthetic version of or it mimcs parathyroid hormone. I have a problem with excess parathyroid hormone (PTH) so I am somewhat familiar with PTH. That hormone (which your parathyroid glands produce) does increase your calcium absorption by activating vitamin d. It also regulates the level of calcium in your blood by a complicated feedback system to keep your blood calcium level at a constant level. One of the things that it does to maintain blood calcium levels is to take some from your bones if it senses too little in the blood. So on the one hand it enables you to absorb more calcium but too much PTH can cause calcium loss from the bones. What little I have read about Forteo is that somehow your body increases bone density when PTH levels are elevated for short time periods as long as it goes back to normal after and this is why Forteo is given every day. For me the PTH is high most of the time. I know one of my neighbors tried it for a while but did not see much in the way of an improvement and found doing the shots every day to be too hard to continue. I would check the web for side effects, how it has to be administered, and in the meantime try some supplements that contain especially magnesium, boron, silica and vitamin d which are all needed to build up bones. I'm so sorry you have compression fractures that has to be hard to deal with,

Hello, nanny1611; Hello, cc22!
Thank you both for your information!
nanny1611- I did indeed visit the web page & was horrified by what I read. One person had seizures as a side effect!
cc22- thank you for your detailed knowledge of how Forteo works. It scares me about the up & down levels of calcium.

As we all know, calcium is important to nerve function & signal transmission. Epilepsy, simply put, is too much nerve signaling in the brain, in turn causing seizures. Calcium spikes from Forteo have a good chance of triggering seizures.
It's a trap for me. So many drugs have horrible side effects & my Ortho is convinced the anti-epileptic drugs I've been on for 8 years is the cause of my bone loss. I cannot get off of these epilepsy drugs, yet they are slowly killing me. My last seizure is what caused the compression fractures. If I seize again, I just may be in a wheel chair.
From what I've learned about Forteo so far, I will not take it. I am starting calcium citrate, D3, K2 (mk7) & dietary changes.
Thank you both for your help & knowledge!
nanny1611- thank you once again for the link & cc22- Sending a hug from here!
With appreciation! MelodyJane
Glad I joined this Group!

@MelodyJane
Two different doctors told me to always take an equal amount of magnesium (but not oxide) to match the amount of calcium, along with vitamins d3 and k2. They said that these things work together synergistically. The one doctor said never to take more than 400-600 mg. of calcium in one day, because it can cause problems such as kidney stones, etc. He told me consider how much calcium is in food (such as milk) and other supplements when I'm taking calcium, so often I skip days or only take 250 mg. of calcium. In addition, my current doctor told me to take strontium citrate at least 4 hours apart from the cal-mag. So I take calcium, magnesium, d3, and k2 in the morning, and strontium citrate in the evening.

I was diagnosed with osteoporosis at the age of 56. My Dr. said I was a good candidate for Forteo, so I gave it a "shot" (pardon my pun). I gave myself the daily injections for two years, and had no side effects whatsoever.

After the two years of Forteo allotted by the FDA, I now get an injection of Prolia twice a year. After the Forteo therapy and three injections of Prolia, my bone density improved significantly! My Dr. was very impressed. I just turned 60, and feel fortunate to not have had any side effects.

Good luck with your journey, especially with the seizures. My husband has a seizure disorder, so I know what a complicated mess of meds/side effects some people have to live with.

I have been prescribed forteo also and worry about side effects and can not seem to find much information from patients who have taken it, any ideas, of where I might find patient experieces on forteo?

@molliecarey
In Reply #1 above I posted a link to AskAPatient.com, where you can find patient comments on lots of meds. I'm not aware of any other websites that do this, although there could be others.

I believe drugs.com is also a good site to understanding a drug you are considering.