FEMARA

Marijen, have you seen this calculator? http://www.lifemath.net/cancer/breastcancer/therap... You put in your data and it and get percent survival with and without treatment. Be sure before you start entering it that you are on the TREATMENT graph, not the SURVIVAL graph. Also, be aware that seeing those numbers can be very upsetting for some people. This calculator will ask you about tamox vs AI, but it doesn't calculate them differently, so you can't use it to tell if you should do one vs the other, but you can use it to show you a survival curve with chemo and a random hormonal therapy or without.

Using myself as an example, the overall survival difference with an AI is 6%. That means that if 100 people just like me take an AI, 76 of them were not going to die of cancer anyhow so there was no difference, 18 of them will die of cancer with or without an AI so again no difference (though the AI could delay the relapse), and the last 6% would have died of cancer without the AI but with it, did not. The rest of the chart tells me that with all treatments, my 15 year survival improves by 30% from 52% chance of being alive in 15 years to 82%. Obviously someone like me needs a full-court press for treatment, so an AI makes sense. For someone without positive nodes and/or with a less aggressive cancer, it might make only a 1-2% difference or less. In that case especially if the person is having SE, it may not make sense to take.

I don't like that calculator. For one do you put in your age at dx or current age. And it doesn't go past 5 cm tumour..

Bossomblues...I'm so sorry you had to go through that. So unfair, so unempathetic, and I will go as far to say unethical! I know first hand how drugs can drastically affect our mental status. For you not to get that validated is horrific. Maybe if these docs worked with us the compliance rate would be higher than 50 percent! Good luck to all

I'm sorry Susan, that's a long way from my 3%. I see the MO end of July. I will ask her to tell me what she thinks my % improvement is.

BosumBlues: I am so saddened to hear your tale of horror.  No one should ever be subject to such ill treatment.  I wouldn't wish that experience on my worst enemy.  What a shame that you have to heal from the abuse of those who were supposed to provide care.  Our healthcare providers are supposed to... well... provide CARE.  Clearly your original MO has failed you.  It sounds as though you have had to pull yourself out of the depths on your own, and that you have done so with the help of your new MO.  What beautiful inner strength you must have.  I wish you well with your decisions on Femera and Amromasin.  QOL is so very important.  We all have a finite amount of time on this earth.  You deserve many years ahead, and those years should be good ones filled with family, friends, and some beautifully quiet moments.  ((( hugs )))

Thank you Susan for explaining it to me. I had to wait until I could see it on a computer screen as my phone was far to small.

Hello, ladies, what a great thread! I am a caregiver for my mother who has been taking Femara for year and a half, and her side effects were hair loss in the beginning, but she is taking Biotin (Natrol brand) for that, and it helps, plus I bought her Nioxin shampoo, and a couple of anti-hairloss serums, altogether hair thinning somehow stopped. But now she is suffering from numb hands at night. I can't yet classify it as carpal tunnel syndrome or trigger fingers, she will see a neurologist soon. But it seems Femara causes issues with hands. Mom experiences numbness, tingling, and she is unable to flex her fingers at night. That only happens at night, and more or less her hands are OK during the day. If anyone is willing to share similar stories and ways to handle this, I'd be very grateful. I want to be prepared at her doctor's appointment, don't want her to be dismissed by the neurologist. Because that already happened once, she was sent home with recommendations of self-massage. No tests, no MRI, no injections or physiotherapy, nothing. Thanks a lot for any help you can provide!

hi, I also had numb hands at night since I had been on an A1. My right hand I went so far as to have carpel tunnel surgery but did not work. EMG test says I have no carpel tunnel but fingers still numb with no medical readon. My MO thinks it coukd be the A1,s I was on.I am now back on Tamoxifen as I coykd not tolerate the side effects of f Arimedex and Femara.

hi, I also had numb hands at night since I had been on an A1. My right hand I went so far as to have carpel tunnel surgery but did not work. EMG test says I have no carpel tunnel but fingers still numb with no medical readon. My MO thinks it coukd be the A1,s I was on.I am now back on Tamoxifen as I coud not tolerate the side effects of f Arimedex and Femara.

I also have trouble with numbness in my fingers, sometimes when I wake up and other times especially in the mornings when I'm holding a spoon to eat my oatmeal for breakfast. Most times it eventually goes away when I move them or do a little massage on them. I do take Krill oil and vitamin D3 along with turmeric so I'm not sure what helps.

Chapagonzo, would you share with us what brand of femara you were on and what you switched to. Is it the brandname Femara or is it the generic letrozole? I have found the Teva brand of letrozole to be easier to tolerate as have others so I'm sure we'd all like to know what you are using now.

Thanks!

marijen: Oddly enough, my trigger thumb,which I was unable to bend at all at one point, got better on Letrozole. I've been off of it for 3 weeks and on anatrozole for 1 week, and it's starting to snap again.

marijen: Mine came on when I was in Florida...thought maybe it was the way I was holding my Kindle reading for several hours every day. But it just never improved. In fact, it got worse and I had a cortisone injection in the knuckle...not at the base of the thumb where the swelling was, don't know why...anyway that did absolutely nothing. Then, suddenly, I started moving it again and then had full mobility back, but with some pain yet. Now, it seems to be getting worse again.

I tried a brace and it made it worse. It was pressing right on the tendon.

I didn't know numb hands was a SE of Letrozole..... I've been taking it for just 2 weeks but for the past week my right hand gets numb at night and during the day if I use my mouse and type a lot or knit. Better call my PDN.....

marijen - No, I take it in the morning. So you think it will just stay the same? I wonder if it would return to normal if I stopped the Letrozole.