cindy0824

Has anyone experienced joint &/or muscle pain after stopping Alendronate? I took it for approximately 4 years and had no side effects while taking it. I was recently told I could stop the Alendronate because my T-scores were good. Shortly after stopping the medication, I began to have severe muscle/joint pain that came out of nowhere and it has continued for the past 3+ weeks. It is so severe that I do not sleep well. Moving an arm or leg is torture. It now takes me 10-20 minutes to get out of bed in the AM and that's after doing a lot of stretching. Then I can finally swing my legs over the side of the bed. I can hardly walk when I do stand up. I shuffle around for the 1st half hour! Almost every joint and muscle in my body locks up tight and hurts (as if I have rigor mortis). It does get a little better as I move throughout the day, but gets worse if I sit still for any length of time. It never goes away. I went from being an active, healthy 57 year old to barely being able to function and get through the day. The only thing that has changed since this all started is that I stopped taking Alendronate. At first, I thought I had contracted Lymes Disease or I had Rheumatoid Arthritis that appeared pretty much overnight. Then I read that people sometimes experience these symptoms while they are taking Alendrondate. I'm wondering if anyone else who has stopped taking Alendronate has experienced this. And if so, how long did it take for this to go away (if it went away at all). I'm starting to freak out that I've done some permanent damage by taking this medication and hope these are not lifelong symptoms that I will be left with. I feel like I'm 300 years old!! Can anyone help me with this? How long might I expect to feel like this? I've read that people, after a year of being off this medication, are still having these types of side effects!