Tamoxifen and hot flashes

VL22

My main and most annoying SE on tamoxifen are hot flashes. During the day is ok, but they wake me up 2-3 times a night and I’m tired during the day. I know during “real” menopause hot flashes eventually go away. Will they go away eventually on tamoxifen? I’m almost 46 and women in my family tend to go into menopause later.

Thank

LaniMoo

When I first started on Tamoxifen seven years ago, I lasted several months with the hot flashes and other side effects before I went back to my Dr. Initially he had told me that if I can’t handle the side effects, he could put me on an additional med to combat those. I thought I could handle it but was truly miserable so I started taking Effexor 37.5 mg. I had about a week of 24/7 nausea with that and started thinking..geez I’ll just stick with the hot flashes! The nausea did subside after about a week. Fast forward seven years and I am weaning myself off the Effexor. On my recent visit to my Dr, he had told me that I could stop both my Tamoxifen & Effexor since my risk of reoccurrence is so low. I stopped the Tamoxifen no problem and had been told when I began Effexor that I would have to taper off of it when the time came. Well, I have been doing that for 3 weeks now and it has been awful!!! I am having brain zaps (I read about this prior to stopping the medicine and wondered what that even meant..well now I know) as well as irritability, bizarre dreams, and dizziness. I’m pressing on and will deal with it. The side effects are real, even though when I mentioned

gb2115

Those middle of the night hot flashes are annoying for sure. I get those too. Last week I woke up with a hot flash and a leg cramp at the same time. So not fair!!