cognivie abilities

Dragonsnake,

I also went through an episode where I was taking classes while on medication, and at the time I felt it had something to do with my difficulty in comprehending. I can't state that it was 100% caused by it but I've been looking at the forum "Complimentary & Holistic Medicine Treatment " and they were mentioning something called DIM. I'm taking a closer look at this because not just the cognitive effects but other SE's that have made me rethink about the anti hormone medication that I was prescribed. Everyone is different and I don't want to sway you in any way; but this is what happened to me, and I'm sure that there will be others that will chime in that they haven't had any problems.

Good Luck

I am a civil engineer on letrozole. No problems with the math stuff, haven't lost that, but occasionally I forget words I've known forever. I always remember them later, but in the moment I can't quite access them. I play bridge and haven't notice any effect there either which requires counting and keeping track of cards played, but I did have trouble spelling letrozole until I looked at Chi's post..... Old age maybe. I did have "chemo brain", but it went away in a year or so.

Dragonsnake, as long as you don't do anything permanent, i.e. have your ovaries out, you can test drive the hormonal therapy and quit or change if you need to. So tamoxifen, or ovarian suppression using Lupron or Zoladex combined with either tamoxifen or an aromatase inhibitor would be options. The last option might shrink the fibroids. In my personal experience, some trouble with word recall, especially names, has been the most obvious cognitive side effect of both tamoxifen and letrozole.

Hi Dragonsnake, I am an IT manager working in a high pace and high stress environment. I don't do differential equations but I need to be focused, able to multi-task and generally speaking be sharp when I am at work.

I have been on an AI for almost 2.5 years now - all while working - and btw I worked through chemo and radiation too. I think hormonal treatments do not decrease your mental abilities but rather accelerate the aging process that in turn impacts all of your abilities - both physical and mental. My brain works better now than when I was on chemo or in radiation treatment and I believe that is because I am physically stronger and less stressed than when I was in active treatment. That being said, I cannot work as much without losing sharpness as I used to in the past: my job sometimes requires late night phone meetings or weekend work and I feel tired sooner than in the past. I used to be able to function quite well on very little sleep but not anymore. I need to rest in the evening in order to be sharp the next morning, I can't do a business meeting till 10PM at night and feel refreshed and productive at 9AM the next morning.

So in my opinion, it's a combination of factors that produce stress and accelerate aging, I wouldn't blame it all on tamox or AIs.

One word: GABA. I was getting so bad, I had all 10 warning signs of Alzheimers. Didn't recognize people's faces, getting disoriented in restaurants, coudln't finish a sentence, on and on. I discovered a half of an Ativan let me get some sleep, no hot flashes, but I was still pretty spaced out during the day. So I researched Ativan and learned that it works by keeping the GABA in your brain... so I bought a GABA supplement and literally overnight I think I'm cured! I can think straight again... sleeping pretty good! Let me know if anyone knows anything about it... for now, I'm a fan.