I've had dry eye since I started Femara.  Fosamax made it much worse.  I stopped the Fosamax when I had a tooth extraction and my eyes got better.  I started a Zometa and since have had nothing but problems with my eyes.

The thing that really irritates me is I went for Lasik sugery and they were well aware of the medications I was on; but apparently they didn't know the side effects of the medications, since Lasik drys the eyes.----Eyes glued to lids daily.   I need to seriously deal with this.

Oh, and I am in my mid-40s and had the detached retina when I was 30.  Some of us just have bum luck.

I started on arimidex in Dec.2007 on it for 2 months switched to femara and I have now gotten so I cannot stay on pc long my eyes hurt and I get dizzy.  I just saw an eye doctor and he said no change since last year.  I have been on the femara for 6 months. 

Has anyone had problem from femara and swithed to another one without the eye problems? Did 5 yrs of tamoxifen.

Jude why did you swithch from arimidex? Did you have eye problems on that one?

I had very little problems on tamoxifen....just terrible hot flashes/

Which is best..arimidex or aromasin?

Thanks for your help.

bc and le hugs jinky

Hi jinky...I switched from arimidex because the joint pain got so bad I could not walk across the living room floor at times.  I did better on the femara for about a month and now I am right back where I was on the arimidex.  I am taking arthrotec and osteo bi-flex triple strength and arthritis advantage all three and livng with a torn up stomach right now.  My eyes are so dry and I think I have at least half of the side effects from these pills....  I was told I could try the aromasin but as of yet I have not tried I figure if I have problems with 2 of the AI's then the third one will be no better.  I have been told by people who have quit the pills that the symptoms go away after awhile usually....I wish I knew for sure so I would no what to do as for continuing on with these pills.......

I have the beginning stages of getting cataracs now.  My eyes are driving me nuts.  I love to read and now it is hard to do.  I just want to know if the vision will get better once one stops the meds.  I am really thinking of quitting.  I had cancer on my left side in the early 90's and took tamoxifen and still got it in the right side 12 years later.  Wonder if these meds really help.

I've not taken famera yet but started with arimidex and am on aromasin now.  I developed seriously blurred vision on both meds.  Also had PVD in one eye, often caused by a severe drop in estrogen as in menopause, post pregnancy, or start of AIs.  Mine happened when I restarted AIs after a two month holiday to see if arimidex was causing severe blurred vision.  

It turns out that my blurred vision is primarily caused by a problem with clogged meibomian glands from blepharitis.  Not sure if this started on chemo, but I noticed the swollen eye lids then.  However the AIs made the problem much worse.  

If the meibominan glands in the eye lids are clogged, the eye doesn't have the film of oil that keeps tears from evaporating.  My eye produce enough tears, but could not keep them on the surface on the eye.  After two years of using drops all day, my new routine has made marked improvement in my eyes.  Not perfect, but better.  I scrub my eye lids with diluted "no tears" baby shampoo and use a hot compress on them to help open the glands.  This twice a day.  

This is a helpful website to visit.  http://www.aoa.org/patients-and-public/eye-and-vi...

bump

Breast Cancer Medications and Vision: Effects of Treatments for Early-stage Disease

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC32058...

from Sas

Mari, The Vitreous clouding---are you under the care of a Retinologist? I developed wet macular degeneration in Nov. 2016. I have rec'd 5 eye injections since. Oddly, when I had the first eye scan, the technician dropped in conversation that I was the 4th of 8 patients that day that had a history of BC. Eye fluroscien scans can be done for many reasons. Was it a fluke that 50% of that days patients had BC or is it a problem unidentified? I tried to address it with the doc. He blew me and the question off. I checked the net and there is very little info on chemo(1) and AI's(0). Initially, I figured this is an area that has been ignored b/c the connection isn't being made. WHY? It's not the retinologists body part or problem. Direct eye cancers are rare. They don't tend to think outside their body part. A friend recently entered a new trial, and for the first time an opthamologist evaluation was part of the work up. So, what's your complete history on this?

My opthamologist told me today that Letrozole can cause swelling at the back of the eyes. He took photos, haven't received an answer if there is swelling or not but he couldn't "see" any with other tests.

Thank you for coming back from the past to update us 5graces! Good to hear you are doing well. I assume your eyes are healthy now? My problem is my opthamologist says my eyes are healthy, really? But I have Fuch's disease (unrelated to Letrozole), PCO (scarring from my cataract surgery), PVD posterior Vitreous Detachment - that could be from normal aging and/or Aromatase Inhibitor treatment. Of course turning off the estrogen in your system speeds up aging. Now I have an ERM in one eye, floaters in both - a lot of floaters, I mean hundreds or more. ERM is some kind of wrinkling of the retina. No retina tearing thank goodness - it was a clean detachment, the doctor is so pleased about that - he said it was right over the optic nerve and that is a good thing. But then he went on to tell me it doesn't mean it's totally detached because it can detach in 10 places. So I'll be getting a lot of monitoring from now on. I think the fear of losing my eyesight is greater than the fear or recurrence. It's a choice of the better evil. Right now I'm off the letrozole and I also have pretty bad arthralgia since a change in the manufacturer of my letrozole from Roxane to Breckenridge. In just a few weeks the difference is pain is very notable. I used to say cataract surgery was one of the three best things that ever happened to me, however, apparently the surgery can cause scarring and the ERM I think. Need to double check that. All in all I am hoping for a better drug to come along. Psychologically I would rather be on the letrozole and doing all that I can. Who's got the answer here? No tamoxifen is not a choice, it may be worse than AI where the eyes are concerned.

Sas, I see above you asked me for the whole story. So it's here and there is another forum AI and blurriness or something. Sorry didn't see your post before now. I've been on Letrozole since April 2015. Just a few months ago I was feeling pretty good......