Stopping/refusing tamoxifen and starting BHT anyone?

VeronicaX

Hi all, It's been a while since I have  posted here. I have finished chemo and rads last year and I have been on tamoxifen for 6 months now. I am doing a lot of complementary stuff so I feel well, I have no pain in my joints or other lingering side effects from the chemo. But, tamoxifen gives me vaginal atrophy and dryness  which causes candida and UTIs. I will try local estrogen creams  (I would like to paste an article/link here, why would it not let me do that ??) and perhaps even stop taking tamoxifen. In US there are plenty of drs who balance your hormones and get you off tamoxifen to prevent reccurence and I called the Tahoma ( Dr. Jhonathan Wright) clinic in US on Friday and they are also working with Canadian drs. The receptionist could not tell me which drs but she said that they have Canadain pts with BC who are on Bioidentical hormone replacement/balancing to prevent reccurence (instead of tamoxifen). I asked twice , to make sure there is no misunderstanding

I do not wish to create  a debate , opinions are devided, but I find it frustrating that at least in Ontario ( in Vancouver they are much more open minded) we don't know anything about this, don't talk about this , do not share information.  I called my oncologist and asked the nurse to ask her if she would be ok if a dr prescribed me local hormonal cream for my vagina. Its been 5 days and they have not returned my call. I find that most oncologists are absolutely useless after you finish chemo.

Anyone else have a similar experience or thoughts or some info that could share?

Thanks,

Veronica

SelenaWolf

I have found Replens to be wonderful; I get it at my local Shopper's Drugmart.  There's no hormones or parabens in it and the relief it provides for dryness is lovely.

And, my opinion only, I suspect that the dryness and atrophy is more related to my being thrown suddenly into menopause by chemo; I was experiencing these symptoms several months BEFORE I started the tamoxifen.

VeronicaX

Thanks SelenaWolf. I would actually not mind a local cream that has estrogen in it (the good type) because the concentration is so low that it would only stay local.

Also, I wanted to report for anyone who might be intrested that I found trubalancehealthcare.com and  they can reffer patients to drs who deal with cancer patients and use BIH. I also found some articles on this topic but the copy/paste function does not work .