Tamoxifen and singing voice

Vainandafraid, I have never heard of this, but that doesn't mean anything!! I was wondering if you developed a cough or sore throat during radiation? If not, Tamoxifen gave me bad heartburn which can make your voice raspy from the acid reflux. It helped me to decrease my dose to 10mg, after taking a few days off, and slowly increasing to 20mg. I still take 10mg twice a day.

Had not made the connection to Tamoxifen, but my vocal range narrowed so that I could not reach the upper soprano notes or the lower alto notes. Ended up leaving the church choir because I was totally frustrated. Hmmmm...

Vainandafraid:

I'm glad you mentioned this because I've experienced something related but have never previously said anything about it because it's odd.

I'm also not a professional singer but have done Karaoke in the past and am a regular shower singing and I like to be able to carry a tune if just for my own sake. A few years ago I was put on a low dose of testosterone because. This was too low of dose to drop my voice or anything like that but I completely lost the ability to sing on key. This seemed like a sound processing issue like I just couldn't find the note in my head. It resolved when I went off the testosterone.

When I went on the tamoxifen, I noticed my ability to sing on key drastically improved.

I'm now off the tamoxifen and on anastrazole which I think may increase my testosterone so we will see what happens with my singing abilities.

vainandafraid, my personal theory is that voice changes from hormone medicines are due to just that: the changes in our hormones brought about by these drugs.

If you think about it, our voices are very sensitive to hormones. They change at puberty (okay, more for guys), and as we become older and lose our hormones due to natural menopause. Think of all the singers out there who don't sound the same at 70 as they did at 30. I also had a friend from choir who usually sang alto, but could sing tenor while pregnant!

I don't think it's just you though. When I was on aromatase inhibitors and ovarian suppression my vocal range got noticeably smaller. I was singing in a band with friends at the time and it became frustrating to hit both higher and lower notes in my normal register. I also felt that my voice quality changed very slightly, but it was mostly just noticeable to me.

It's hard when treatment disrupts the things we love and care about. I hope you find a good solution, keep us posted.

Vainandafriad, I think my voice came back, but since I jumped into other meds it's hard to say for sure. Also, in my case I unfortunately had a metastatic recurrence which has caused other troubles (I feel of breath sometimes due to that, for example).

It's a tough call. I would recommend doing what you can to prevent a recurrence - because believe me, life does not get easier when your cancer comes back. That being said, it's important to prioritize the things that are important to you in life NOW, and hang on to those. For example, I switched from AIs to Faslodex because the AIs were causing problems in my hands, and making it so I couldn't play the piano. The Faslodex did not cause that problem, so I could have effective hormone medicine, and keep up my music.

I'm not saying you should do Faslodex ;-) but what I am saying, is talk to your doctor and see if there is a "middle way" of treating your cancer and also maintaining what is important to you. There might be. Ultimately it is your decision. But quality of life is SO important too.