painful ovarian cysts on tamoxifen

tshire

Hi ladies! I haven't been on here in awhile, but I wanted to ask about an uncomfortable side effect of tamoxifen- ovarian cysts.

I still get periods on tamox (on it almost 2 years now), and about mid-cycle I get painful cramping and feelings of fullness in the lower abdomen that go away after a few days. When those symptoms recede, I get a tiny bit of spotting for about a day or so. I went to the gyno who scheduled me for a TV ultrasound. By the time of that appointment all the symptoms had gone away, and the results were a normal uterus, a simple cyst, and the remnants of a hemorrhaged cyst. That was about 9 months ago, but I still get these symptoms monthly.

I've never had ovarian cysts before tamox. Does anyone else deal with this? Am I just locked into cysts growing and bursting in me every month I'm on tamoxifen? Are there any ways to relieve the pain? It's rather uncomfortable and disconcerting.

NotVeryBrave

It's not pain from ovulation? Chemo shut down my cycles, but I used to most definitely get pains around ovulation, mid cycle each month.

Since being on Tamoxifen, I've had some of those feelings off and on. I had an ovarian cyst years ago and recall that as being more continuously painful. I saw the GYN and had an US then, but nothing was done and it resolved.

SummerAngel

I didn't have any ovarian cysts until I started Tamoxifen. It created large, painful cysts almost immediately and the pain didn't go away until the cysts burst (which was EXTREMELY painful). Ovarian cysts are a very common side-effect of Tamoxifen for premenopausal women, I think some of us get them worse than others. I don't know what you can do about them, sadly. I quit Tamoxifen because of the many severe side-effects I had.