Bottle 'o Tamoxifen

AngielInAmsterdam - There is at least one forum on CBD, CBD/THC you should check out. For me, it does not seem to help. THC tends to make me feel groggy the next day, and I'm thinking CBD also does the same. Both drops to put in beverage, have not tried lotions. I took one product recommended by a friend for sleep ( hers is no cancer related), but did not seem to help me. Several people on the marijuana/THC/CBD mention products they found helpful. I have not tried many. Only CBD legal where I am, have to travel out of state for other stuff.

https://community.breastcancer.org/forum/79/topics/868047?page=1#post_5300868

https://community.breastcancer.org/forum/79/topics/817030?page=2#post_5300612

https://community.breastcancer.org/forum/79

AngieInAmsterdam - turmeric might help with joint issues and acupuncture might help with stress/anxiety. I add turmeric to meals as well as taking a supplement, and I think it helps. I like the Gaia "joint" formulation, but there are many other kinds and brands out there. Acupuncture has been quite variable with stress/anxiety/sleep loss/joints. Sometimes I find the sessions very helpful, othertimes I do not notice much. I looked into "scalp acupuncture" for joint issues related to cancer treatment. Only one person where I live seemed to know about it and said she had studied it in school, but never practiced it. We tried a few sessions, and it did not seem to help with joints. I can't find the original article I saw which described scalp acupuncture and patients taking cancer drugs, but maybe these links will be helpful. https://www.aimc.edu/event/yamamoto-new-scalp-acupuncture/

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/221915688_Yamamoto_New_Scalp_Acupuncture_YNSA_Development_Principles_Safety_Effectiveness_and_Clinical_Applications/link/0046353a9a1a672ac6000000/download

I have just started to read Anticancer living : transform your life and health with the mix of six by Cohen, Lorenzo, And so far I think it has alot of helpful information on lifestyle to get through/fight/prevent cancer. ".....building social and emotional support; managing stress; improving sleep, exercise and diet; and minimizing exposure to environmental toxins" . They even have a clinical type trial in Texas exploring this. For me, I need to work on the social/emotional support, so I am looking into a "Livestrong" program at the YMCA as well as Qigong. I am pretty motivated for excercise, but probably need to do more variety and with other people rather than the treadmill. Usually I manage stress fairly well, but working with internet providers has just about done me in. I need to reign in the sugar/carbs/alcohol. I probably consume far more than I think I do.

Re: tumeric - I've read that this affects the body's ability to use tamoxifen as well. I've started taking it, but I only take it morning and maybe lunch if early enough. I take tamoxifen at least 6 hours later.

I just started LiveStrong this week. I'm hoping that this does help me with the social / mental / emotional aspects in addition to the cardio & strength training.

Hi Ladies not sure if I am posting in the correct place but I have a question

With quiet a few cancers ie. Kidney..thyroid, bladder etc to name a couple..in the early stage they do surgery to remove the tumour and no preventative treatments are pushed or given.

With breast cancer even in early Tamoxifan hormone therpy is advised at times.. how come? A but confused.

But

Combo rant/whine.

My third of three 10K races is this Sunday. That means T day, when I will start this blasted drug, is Monday. Which is four days away.

I really-o truly-o do not want to take this.

edj3: I've been on it 6 months now, and it has been NOTHING for me, no issues!! Just take it Monday if you are worried, tho!

Edit: ok ... I guess it's been 9 months now, not 6. Time is flying! ; )

If you can, start slowly. My Rx is for 10mg a day. I started with a half pill, 5, for the first 4 weeks. Have slowing been increasing. I have stabilized at 10 on MWF and 5 the other days for 50 mg over the course of the week. I am okay with this and I had horrible SEs with Arimedex... Since I am so close to the 70mg the MO wants, but am fine at 50mg without SEs...I am more fearful of ramping up the last bit than just staying where I am at. With the current regime I never take a 10mg pill on back to back days...I'm afraid I might tip my hand into SEs if the high dose is more frequent. TT

Hi Angie, I hope everything works out for you. My daughter was home for summer and her presence keeps my mind occupied but now that she’s back to college and I have empty nest, my anxiety starts building up again. I noticed when anxiety hits, depression follows. I keep reminding myself to keep strong.

My current issues are, swollen eye lids, losing weight, insomnia, and anxiety. I am not losing a lot of weight but it bothers me since it was so hard for me lose weight before, now it seems like without trying hard, I am losing weight. I eat a lot of veggies now and stay away from meat especially red meat. I don’t have hot flushes or new pain from Tamoxifen. I have pain before diagnosis that I’m dealing with but no new one. I take Caltrate, it’s a calcium supplement that contains Magnesium and Vit D.

Does anybody had a CT scan after chemo as part of after treatment care? My MO requested one for me to ease my anxiety but I put it on hold because of the risk I’m reading online.

Have great weekend everybody!

So I just saw my MO yesterday for my annual checkup. I'm coming up 7 years since diagnosis!! Anyway, he asked how I was doing and I said great now that I'm off Tamoxifen! I told him that when I finished my 5 years in Feb of 2018 I still felt like crap for months. I mentioned that I didn't start seeing relief from muscle pain till about Nov and then in Jan (almost a year after stopping) I started to lose weight. I'm now down about 12 pounds this year without changing diet or exercise. He told me that Tamoxifen settles in your fat tissue and that fat really sucks in the Tamoxifen so when you quit taking it, it will take many months for the fat to eventually release the Tamoxifen. He said once it does, the improvement is pretty dramatic and I have to say he's right. Kinda wish he'd told me this a year and a half ago but anyhoo.....So for those of you hoping for a quick dip in SEs once you're done with you T, just sit tight. It will happen. He also said that if you can drop any weight when you quit, it will help the Tamoxifen leave your body even faster. So there you have it....straight from my very smart MO's mouth....for what it's worth.

PS--I now have him looking into Relizen for my hot flashes. So far he's on the fence. Thinks it looks good but wary of no real studies done yet. We shall see.....

lala...that is interesting re the long slow release of the T from our systems. Especially so as my MO was most concerned with the DVT SE...I travel a lot for business and have many long distance flights each year (coast to coast/Europe)...so now I am wearing compression stockings on flights but he said I would not have to wear compression stockings within 6 weeks of being off T! Guess I'll need to rethink that, having a stroke due to a SE is more scary to me than have a recurrance. TT

Today was day 3 of tamoxifen for me. I'm taking 5 mg a day in the morning, after I've worked out. I definitely feel nauseous but it's hard to say whether that's from tamoxifen or from fillers used to bind the pill. I'm a dainty snowflake like that.

I do have some joint/muscle pain that started the week after I got my first Prolia injection (which was 10 days before I started tamoxifen). Fun times.

Peridot I have cramping around my period and around the time I would be ovulating, I also find that I'm exhausted about 24-48 hours before cycle starts. For me warm flashes kicked in about a week after starting. I take 10 in the morning and 10 at night, when I did 20 at once the hot flashes were worse. Good luck!

Thanks guys for the info on side effects. So far just slight nausea. Not looking forward to any other side effects, but I will keep at it and see how I do. My MO really wants me to keep it up. Thanks for the advice!

BELLADONNA, deadly nightshade, is a common homeopathic remedy. It is available in most pharmacies here in Canada, no prescription required.

Belladonna prepared homeopathically has NO DETECTABLE belladonna in it. This is the whole gobbledygook of homeopathics, the remedies that are made from X substance could never be traced back to X substance because it is so diluted that there is no detectable amount of the original X in the remedy. And the more diluted it is, the more powerful it is considered to be according to homeopathic practice. You could swallow an entire bottle of homeopathic BELLADONNA and no harm would come to you. But I would be very cautious indeed to take belladonna in any form other than homeopathically.

I have studied homeopathy. I use it on myself, my family and my animals.

Ginger supplements 500 mg stopped most of the night sweats for me. I found that tip here on bc.org, after going through years and years of posts. When I first got BC in 2014, I could not take tamox because the night sweats were so bad and so frequent that I couldn’t get into REM sleep. You gotta have sleep! I’d alsotried black cohosh (no joy), and every combination of when to take the tamox. Can’t take AI’s because of heart. Since my onctotype was 13, I decided to take a deep breath and take my chances.

Three years and one week later, it came back; the cancer had completely displaced normal tissue in a lymph node in my left axilla. Fortunately, it was in an area that had not been irradiated (as best as my radiologist at Hopkins could tell — my case went to the tumor board.). So we did another lumpectomy, and 6 weeks of radiayion, rather than 19 days. And now I’m on 5 mg of tamoxifen. I still get occasional night sweats, but I’m determined to stay on the tamoxifen. We ran the Breast Cancer Index, and it looks like I’ll only need 5 years, not 10, which is a huge relief. I still have other side effects, but the 5 mg dosage makes them tolerable (I hope) for another 4 years or so.