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Fosamax is the most popular osteoporosis drug on the market, but recent studies have uncovered a defect in the medication. Many who have taken Fosamax are suffering low-impact femur fractures—breaks of the thigh bone that occur due to falls from standing height or less. It turned out that rather than strengthen bones, Fosamax causes them to become brittle and to break under modest stress.

A femoral shaft fracture (broken thighbone) is a serious condition that may require surgical placement of a rod (“intramedullary nail”) down the shaft of the femur. While this area of medical science is still developing, there seems to be a telltale or “signature” injury involving the thigh bone break looking like a sharp bird beak (called “beaking”).
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A hip fracture is a femoral fracture^[1] that occurs in the proximal end of the femur (the long bone running through the thigh), near the hip.

The term "hip fracture" is commonly used to refer to four different fracture patterns and is often due to osteoporosis; in the vast majority of cases, a hip fracture is a fragility fracture due to a fall or minor trauma in someone with weakened osteoporotic bone. Most hip fractures in people with normal bone are the result of high-energy trauma such as car accidents.

In the UK, the mortality following a fractured neck of femur is between 20% and 35% within one year in patients aged 82, ± 7 years, of which 80% were women.^[2]

• Femoral head fracture denotes a fracture involving the femoral head. This is usually the result of high energy trauma and a dislocation of the hip joint often accompanies this fracture.
• Femoral neck fracture (sometimes Neck of Femur (NOF), subcapital, or intracapsular fracture)
• Subtrochanteric fracture actually involves the shaft of the femur immediately below the lesser trochanter and may extend down the shaft of the femur

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Most femoral diaphyseal fractures are treated surgically with intramedullary nails or plate fixation. The goal of treatment is reliable anatomic stabilization, allowing mobilization as soon as possible. Surgical stabilization is also important for early extremity function, allowing both hip and knee motion and strengthening. Injuries and fractures of the femoral shaft may have significant short- and long-term effects on the hip and knee joints if alignment is not restored.

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Fosamax lawsuits regarding femur fractures should be pursued with the help of a Fosamax attorney who has done work in the multi-district litigation

Whether your break involved the shaft of the femur fracturing, or another bone break that required surgery, contact a Fosamax lawsuit attorney as soon as possible to protect your rights. Fosamax lawsuit news.

Patients who suffer this unusual side effect suffer broken legs after minor falls. It's likely that other drugs in the same class as Fosamax -- the bisphosphonates -- have the same rare side effect. It is seen in only a small number of patients who took the drug for more than five years.

In 2008, researchers at Cornell University Medical School released a major study revealing that Fosamax patients are more than 125 times as likely to suffer non-traumatic femur fractures than patients who have not taken Fosamax.

Joseph M. Lane, MD, chief of the metabolic bone disease service at New York/Presbyterian Hospital and professor of special surgery at Weill Medical College of Cornell University and colleagues report the side effect in a letter to the March 20 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine.

"There is a subset of patients for whom the longer they take bisphosphonates, the more they turn off the internal repair of the bone. This sets them up for bone fractures after trivial falls," Lane tells WebMD. "Is everyone who takes a bisphosphonate going to get this? No. This is a subset of patients. But we cannot say what makes these patients unique. And is it unique to this one bisphosphonate, or to all drugs in this class? "

Ten of the patients had a distinct and unusual fracture pattern. These patients had been taking Fosamax for more than seven years on average; the other five patients averaged less than three years of Fosamax use.

"People on prolonged bisphosphonates -- and Fosamax is the only one we have seen so far -- after five to seven years they are at risk of fractures in the long bone of the leg," Lane says. "They complained of thigh pain for months before the breaks. So it seems they start off with a stress fracture that is unrecognized, and it goes on to full fracture."

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Fosamax, one in a class of drugs called bisphosphonates, is supposed to make bones stronger. But now there's mounting evidence that for some women, taking Fosamax or its generic alendronate for more than five years could cause spontaneous fractures.

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Recently, medical experts have connected Fosamax to atypical femur (thigh bone) fractures. An abnormal femur fracture can be defined as a fracture that occurs after little or no impact (from a standing height or less).

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Given the recent studies highlighting the potential risk of low-impact femur fractures in people who regularly take drugs like Fosamax, if you have suffered a bone break after taking Fosamax, you at least have a claim worth exploring. Your claim must show that the drug was defective at the time of purchase, it actually caused the harm, and you took it in a reasonably foreseeable way.

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"We are seeing people just walking, walking down the steps, patients who are doing low-energy exercise

Fosamax femur fractures lawsuit claims that they have caused longer-term users to have “atypical” femur (thighbone) fractures—for example, their leg bone would snap when they stood up from a chair.

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This is not the first time that many doctors have reported an opposite effect for many people taking the drug. Fosamax has already been linked to severe musculoskeletal pain, as well as to a serious bone-related jaw disease called osteonecrosis.

The spectrum of femoral shaft fractures is wide and ranges from nondisplaced femoral stress fractures to fractures associated with severe comminution and significant soft-tissue injury. Femoral shaft (see image below) fractures are generally caused by high-energy forces and are often associated with multisystem trauma. Isolated injuries can occur with repetitive stress and may occur in the presence metabolic bone diseases, metastatic disease, or primary bone tumors
 

'low energy femoral shaft and subtrochanteric fractures.'"

The FDA said they are looking into reports of fractures

The FDA has also never made an effort to inform the public or doctors across the country who prescribe bisphosphonates of the possible side effect

This is not the first time that many doctors have reported an opposite effect for many people taking the drug. Fosamax has already been linked to severe musculoskeletal pain, as well as to a serious bone-related jaw disease called osteonecrosis.