Question
Can you have pain from actonel in just certain parts of your body like shoulders and upper arms?  I have arthritic shoulders and wonder if the side effects of actonel can just attack the parts of the body that have arthritis?  This is not constant pain - just comes and goes.

Answer
Martha,

One of the main possible side effects of Actonel is joint pain. I can not speak about this drug specifically but it has been my observation over the years that when drugs cause joint pain it is noticed more in arthritic joints than others. It could be that a mild amount of inflammation in a joint that does not have arthritis would not effect the joint and not show up as pain. But since a joint with arthritis already has enough inflammation to cause pain the extra created by the drug will be noticed. This pain can be significant since you are adding inflammation to an inflammation problem.

I notice this with the chemo drugs I took while fighting cancer. My hips and knees where I have mild arthritis became extremely painful while I did not notice pain an any of my other joints.

Rusty
http://arthritis-symptom.com/