Is anyone taking 10 mg tamoxifen?

magnolia57
magnolia57 Member Posts: 28
edited September 2014 in Hormonal Therapy - Before, During, and After

Hello Everyone,

After 2 and a half weeks on tamoxifen I broke out with an itchy rash from the waist down. This was the only symptom and it lasted for almost 10 days gradually reducing after I stopped taking tamoxifen. I have taken Arimidex for almost a year before beginning the tamoxifen and there may have been residual anastrozole in my system as well. My plan has been to reduce my 20 mg dose to 10 mg/ day after waiting for the rash to subside. I have been taking the 10 mg for a week and so far so good. I have read current research that support the efficacy of the reduced dosage.  Has anyone else gone down this path either with or without an initial allergic reaction? Please share your experience. I dread going back on the aromatise inhibitors. Thank you!

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  • coraleliz
    coraleliz Member Posts: 1,523
    edited June 2014

    magnolia-My MO suggested I decrease my dose to 10mg when I complained about SEs. He said he wasn't a fan of one size fits all medicine.  I did this for about a month. Since I was unable to find any studies supporting the lower dose, I went back up to 20mg. What did you find supporting the lower dosage?

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  • Oncearunneralwaysarunner
    Oncearunneralwaysarunner Member Posts: 252
    edited June 2014

    I too have dropped to 10mg following discussions with my oncologist about the side effects. He's asked that I try the lower dosage for 6 weeks and report back and he said that we would reevaluate my dosage then. He too informed me that the full dose is way more than needed to be effective.

    My biggest side effects were hot flashes at night and lack of appetite. My hot flashes went from 3-5 a night to 1 a night, sometimes none. My appetite's not back yet but that could be related to stress from work. I would say speak with your oncologist and see what he or she says.

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  • coraleliz
    coraleliz Member Posts: 1,523
    edited June 2014

    bump

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  • magnolia57
    magnolia57 Member Posts: 28
    edited June 2014

    Thanks for the replies and confirmation that there are other people who have tried this approach. I haven't spoken to my oncologist about it yet, so glad there are other doctors on board with this idea. coraleliz, I found the following document that spoke to the 10 mg dose and also the use of topical tamoxifen as a treatment plan. The study was done by Lazzaroni, et al., published in Breast Cancer Research 2012, 14:214  The link should be http://breast-cancer-research.com/content/14/5/214  

    Full title of the study: "Oral low dose and topical tamoxifen for breast cancer prevention: modern approaches for an old drug"

    It addressed women who had already been diagnosed...prevention as noted in the title refers to preventing a reccurance. It doesn't have longevity on the stats, it's more about how the drug is metabolized, serrum levels, etc that point to a low dose being just as effective.

    Hopefully the link works. I also found that a co-author of the research, Andrea Decensi, has published other work very specific to tamoxifen and it's side effects, effectiveness, statistics etc. I like that this i relatively new work....I see so many studies that are referred to are 10 years old or more. It's a trade off.... Oncearunneralwaysarunner, how long have you been taking the lower dose? I am just hoping I won't break out in hives again...this is better than the arimidex.


     

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  • smartypants
    smartypants Member Posts: 3
    edited August 2014

    Good morning!  In June 2014, I started taking Tamoxifen. I was taking the 20mg and immediately began experiencing side effects (discharge, ankle pain, fatigue...).  At my follow up with my MO last week, she suggested that I split the pill in half and take half in the morning and half at night.  I was skeptical, but I bought a $6 pill splitter (my 20mg pills have no score line and are crumbly like an aspririn)  and started the 10mg/ twice a day practice.  Happy to say that within a week my side effects really improved....especially the awful vaginal discharge that had been making my "lady parts" extremely irritated!  I guess my body can handle 10mg twice a day (I take it at 8am and 8pm) better than 20mg all at once. Could be worth asking your MO about it.  Good luck!

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  • mss
    mss Member Posts: 10
    edited September 2014

    Thanks for the link!

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  • JohnSmith
    JohnSmith Member Posts: 651
    edited September 2014

    My wife just started Tamoxifen and experienced the rash after about three weeks on 20mg. She stopped for one week and the rash went away. She started back up on 10mg doses for one week, then back to the full 20 mg dose. About a week later, the rash was back.

    One of the Doctors is skeptical that the pills are causing the rash, but despite that she's is going to see an allergist soon to get this figured out.

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