Sick of tamoxifen

dani_katze141914

Sick of tamoxifen

dani_katze141914

Hi, I had mastectomy of my left breast on decenber 2011 and began with tamoxifen on september that year. Since then I've been feeling akward... hotflashes are the less uncomfortable symptoms for me, the worst are abundant menstruation, migraines, no energy, mood swings... despite all this I've been trying to have the normal life I best can... in fact now I'm on complementary medicine with homeopathic medicine, trying to eat healthy and yeterday I went out for some jogging. Next thursday I've a trip I paid for to go to Cancun on my own. I've been feeling anxiety and kind of afraid but I want to make this trip. Last wednesday I shaved my legs with an higienic roll on system I've been doing for years... but soon after my skin got multiform eritem! I got really depressed. I went to the dermatologist and she told that is because of a bacteria and gave some medicine. It really looks awful! And I read on tamoxifen brochure that this could be one of the side effects but it's no frequent! I feel that the more I try to have a normal life the more I see that it can't be that normal I wish and feel really disspointed and sad because cancer not only took my breast but also the quality of life... Now I don't know if this trip is a good idea and I'm thinking to pospone it if I don't lose too much money.. as for tamoxifen I would like to replace it with homeopathic medicines, what do you think? Any advice or inside is welcome. Thank Dani

BZO63

Your should talk to your GYN aboout your complains and get examined, despite it's all bad reputation, tamixifen is not so bad, think about that it issaving you from a cancer requrqnce. But if you think you can not take it talk to your oncologist.

Beesie

Daniela, with a MX for DCIS, your local recurrence risk is probably already very low - only 1% - 2% - and if your diagnosis was pure DCIS, you don't face a risk of mets.  So as it relates to reducing your recurrence risk, there's actually not much of a benefit from Tamoxifen, simply because your recurrence risk is already low.

A question for you, however. Your signature lines states your diagnosis to be DCIS, but it also says that you had 2/2 nodes positive. Is that true? If you had positive nodes, then your diagnosis is invasive cancer and not DCIS (unless the invasion into the nodes was only isolated tumor cells, which is technically node negative). With positive nodes, that completely changes your recurrence risk - you would then face a risk of mets - and therefore the benefits you'd get from Tamoxifen would be greater, possibly significantly greater.

The other benefit from Tamoxifen, whatever your diagnosis, is the protection of your remaining breast from the development of a new breast cancer at some point in the future. Any of us who've been diagnosed with BC one time are at higher risk to be diagnosed again. Some choose to take Tamoxifen to address this, others don't. Personally I looked at the absolute benefit that I'd get, based on my age and my risk level (as estimated by my oncologist), and I decided that the amount of risk reduction that I'd get from Tamoxifen was not worth it to me. But certainly many women are happy that they have the opportunity to reduce their risk by taking Tamoxifen. Whether you get enough of a benefit to make the side effects worthwhile depends on your age, your risk level and the length of time that you stay on Tamoxifen. 

Have you talked to your oncologist about your concerns?