Oophorectomy at young age, share later side effects

Thank you YoungTurkNY… Sorry for the misinformation, I will correct my post, I was confusing Zoladex/Lupron anti-estrogen effect with Tamoxifen. Indeed there is no special reason why my estrogen should be low. I was hoping that Zoladex/Lupron and chemo would make me not to have my period anymore, but that's not really going to happen. My concern with Tamoxifen is that it might be contributing to ovarian cysts, that one day may turn out to be ovarian cancer, even if not, they make me very nervous. I'm hoping with time, maybe my body adjust to the end of Zoladex/Lupron shots...or not..

maxdog besides heart/vascular problems, there is the cognitive problems stuff, more risk to have dementia/parkinson, osteoporosis, depression, insomnia, vaginal dryness, sexual problems, etc.. and some studies say there is no survival benefice for most of the woman, by the contrary (but I do have a higher risk, I'm not sure if they take that in account).

The long term-effects are the ones that worry me the most, I have read a lot of posts about this, and they all say that the short term effects aren't that bad.

Thank you inks,

Yes, I'm afraid of that estrogen surge, who knows if that may cause ovarian or uterine cancer. Well, at least utereus thickening and cysts it is. If it isn't the disease, it's the cure...

I' m probably going for the ooph + hyst. I just don't know if I want to do it right now, I would prefer to wait some years, maybe by the end of Tamoxifen (2.5 years or 5.5 years from now, not sure) and after my leukemia treatments end and my body recover from that. I'm just tired of all this. I'm probably going to wait to see if my ovaries stay quiet and don't produce any more cysts, and watch my uterus lining, I'm also going to ask for a hysteroscopy + endometrium biopsy, again, I already did one, but they didn't reach the endometrium...argh..The problem with the wait and see aproach is that probably they are going to ask me to do at least a laparoscopy, to confirm the cyst thing, so I could just get rid of everything else, instead of doing another surgery again, later, just to do ooph + hyst .

I keep reading articles about terrible long term side effects of ooph + hyst., but I have one aunt that had breast cancer when she was 33, she then had endometrium cancer with 53 and she had to take it all out, she is 85 now, has osteoporosis and broke her hip 2 years ago, but she is 85, the longest two cancers survivor I have met. But she took it all off with 53y, after menopause.. I have another aunt that went menopause with just 42, she is now 65, and deals with terrible insomnia and depression and some bone osteoporosis and some heart problems (may be a coincidence...but they suspect of her premature menopause). I also have another aunt that also did ooph + hyst. (it was a medical mistake), she didn't had major side effects because she took hormonal pills for ten years (I can't do that), she now has some heart problems, intestinal problems, caused by the space created with the uterus removal, some kind of adhesions, nothing that bad. I also have a neighbor that also did a ooph + hyst when she was 35, it was also a medical mistake, she is 84 now, she has some bone problems, but she is doing well for someone with that age.

So, I'm very curious of latter side effects of OOPH + hyst. done specifically at a young age, and without hormonal treatment after.

Hi rgiuff , yes I tend to agree. I had a lot of US scans (three) in the last 6 months, I was diagnosed (US) with endometrium hyperplasia, so I was worried, I read it's not even possible to be sure about what kind of hyperplasia you have without having a biopsy. They didn't do it, so I decided to be more carefully and watch it more closely with US.

It's true, if this cyst disappears by himself I just had a lot of unnecessary pain (like spending 1 week thinking I would probably die in the next months with ovarian cancer) and thinking about surgery. If I haven't taken the MRI I wouldn't be able to wait and see, that's the simple true, I would opt for a surgery no matter what. But now that MRI came with a benign result, I'm having second thoughts..

But, we also have to see the other side of the coin, if I didn't do any US and if it was cancer and it goes undetected I would die, much sooner. If I had opted for a 'wait and see' approach in my two previous cancers (breast cancer and acute leukemia), and hadn't forced and argued for more exams I would have died. Simple as that. So every time I hear doc. saying...'oh you shouldn't be doing exams for this and that'..I always remember that the "doing more exams thing" already saved my life...twice. I had some minor little signs of breast cancer, years before it was diagnosed, like a little discharge, my nipple kept getting darker than the other, that nipple was also itchy. They couldn't feel any lump, so they didn't care, no one send me to do an US. I knew something was wrong, just didn't now exactly what, and I never thought about breast cancer. Cancer was discovered much later, by accident, when I went for a full check up (US and mamogramm included) against doctors advice, but even then, despite a suspicious lump found (US), the doc that did the mamogramm didn't saw anything at all (I have dense breast) and said that the mamogramm was more important than US (wrong, for dense breasts) and that I should go home, and come back 10 years later, I didn't listen, went to a breast surgeon and did a biopsy, it was cancer (slow growing, so it was there for years!).

Acute leukemia...argh..well...the same story, my wbc were slowly going down for a year, they didn't care, then they crashed, they still didn't care much, I didn't had any chemo for breast cancer, so they blame it on Tamoxifen (at first, I was also suspicious about Tamoxifen), then they blamed supplements, then the 2 or 3 cups of green tea I was taking, virus, etc..I will never forget this..they kept delaying the myelogram, by that time, I was already suspicious about leukemia, I even asked about leukemia when they finally send me for the myelogram, she looked at me like if I was crazy, said I wouldn't have leukemia with my hemoglobin levels (they were normal), when I said I felt l was dying, she then advised me to get some mental help. Then, hours later the result came out, they call me, guess what, I wasn't crazy, I was literally dying, it was acute leukemia and a medical urgency, I was very lucky, I could have died. Everything went fine after. But I just can't ignore all that. People keep saying gut feelings aren't science, well, medicine isn't an exact science either. Until know, my gut feelings have been much more precise than doctors.

This stories were just to say there is pain in doing a lot of exams that may show benign stuff, but there is also pain and maybe death if you don't go and fight for answers. This is a war, I may not win, I may get breast cancer mets, or a leukemia recurrence or another cancer, and die, but I will certainly going to fight it with all I have, but that doesn't mean I'm going to give up on everything right now to just go and fight any hypothetical cancer that may show up in a near future, I'm already fighting against breast cancer and leukemia, both NED, but I'm kinda tired right now...that's and the no kids stuff are the main reason I would prefer to wait some years before taking my ovaries out (I'm also curious about long term side effects, but I will have them later anyway..), I have just spend 2 years dealing with hard menopause side effects, then stopped Lupron shots and all went away, then went premenopause and now they tell me I have to go through all that again, just right now? Why didn't they told me to took it all out before Lupron shots? I would went to menopause but by now my suffering with be lower...Now they come with that just because I have a very probable benign cyst? All the other stuff was already there before...my family risk was the same before, fibroids and other stuff was already there, and they never told me to get my uterus and ovaries out, they send me to Lupron shots...the only new thing is the cyst..I agree that if it's Tamoxifen causing this I may not have another choice than take it all out anyway, but we can't be sure until we wait and see...

I could opt for a smaller surgery, but these type of surgeries scare me (even if it's just laparoscopy), I'm not sure they will not take it all out, even if I ask them not take it all out (except if they find something that is suspicious of not being benign). They can always defend themselves saying they thought it was not benign.. That happened to a lot of woman I know, none of them had breast cancer or ovarian cancer, only benign stuff, and they just went and took it all off instead of just take the benign stuff. Maybe its very difficult to keep it? Or they are just lazy? Not sure.

The MRI radiologist said there isn't any doubt it's a benign cyst. But by the other hand, I'm not sure if I should trust 100% MRI. Also, some docs say MRI are not very reliable for ovarian stuff, others say it's the best. Argh..

I will get a second opinion (gyn onc.) and keep an update on this.

Thank you rgiuff that's exactly what I'm doing! I'm much calmer now.

Just to keep an update. After the MRI now they all say I should wait and see what happens, I'm having a new US next month, then the next, etc. It seems my period came today (I hope this is my period), after a 3 months stop, so maybe this cyst goes away. I will delay any kind of surgery as much as I can, and I will probably wait more 5 years, or until Tamoxifen ending to take all out.