no hormonals poll

Hi Maria,

I am one of these who took Anastrazole for 16 months and I was becoming literally and quickly disabled with all these joint, muscle, bone pains, started losing my hair again - thinning, could not sleep, and became walking "zombie", falling asleep at the wheel, gained weight, hot flashes, could not exercise and was so miserable and depressed. I decided to NOT TO TAKE Anastrazole anymore. My oncologist was OK with that. I refused to take Tamoxifen, because it has such a horrible and risky SE like thrombosis and uterine and ovarian cancers, and I tried to switch to Aromasin, however from that med my hands were so much in arthritic pain, I couldn't even write or wash my hands without pain. I literally felt like 80 years old, I am turning 53 this year.

I am almost 2 weeks off the Anastrazole, and I lost 5 lbs. in first week, I still have lost of pains and tired easily, not sleeping well and still have hot flashes, however my husband noticed that I have more energy and don't complain much about pains, also for some reason I don't think about cancer much anymore, I think that pill was sort of reminder for me that I had a cancer.

I am taking a risk of reoccurrence, but I am surgically menopausal, so don't have tons of estrogen in my body. I would like to have a quality of life, and if I don't live long, so be it.  I also try to find alternative, herbal and untraditional methods to heal detoxify, eat right.

Good luck with your decision! If I would be 10 years older I would never even tried this adjuvant therapy, after surgery, chemo and radiation with stage 1, no nodes involved, I think was enough for me to prevent reocurrence...

Raisa

A timely question, maria26...

I have just made the decision to quit Femara. I took Arimidex for six months with very few problems, then the SEs hit fast and they hit hard. I stuck it out for a year, then went to see my MO. At that point the SEs had become life-threatening, and I was using a walker due to the joint pain.

She was very upset that I hadn't come to see her earlier; she said we could have changed drugs. As it was, I got a two month drug holiday, and ALL the SEs went away. Then she gave me Femara.

Again, the first six months were a breeze, but now the SEs are back, plus I have new, even more debilitating ones.

After BMX (Stage I, no chemo, no rads, no nodal involvement) the MO did tell me that if it turned out that I was one of those women who could not tolerate AIs, that she would feel comfortable taking me off all drugs. I am now at that point.

I have a husband who is seriously ill. I need to have quality of life NOW so that we can enjoy the retirement we had planned for ourselves, for however long we have.

But I remain a BIG advocate for women who need AIs to at least give them a try... for as long as they can, and if one doesn't work, try another one!!!