Femara changing your mood?

Hi Maryl,

How long have you been on it?  I have been on it since end of August and I have to say I have not noticed any mood change (yet).  Love the graphic.

I've been on it for 2 years-I haven't noticed any mood changes---I have been known to be "Bitchy", but I don't think it's the Femara !!

<sigh>

YES!! Yes, Mary.So definately true.

I was going up for 4 years on femara.(I have quit it) But for the past year, I have been SOOOO grumpy and nasty.I ride along in my car cursing other drivers and I'm not even in a hurry.I talk back to radio newscasters and tell them to shut up and what do THEY know about it.I have become so snippy and nasty that I hardly write here anymore.After all, who needs to hear that?

As best I can figure it, it isnt depression.Sometimes, I know, depression masquerades as anger .

But this is just bad mood because I HURT.

And because I'm tired.

And these are my daily 24/7 partners.

Thanks, Femara.I used to be a merry cricket.I was even one in CHEMO!

Now I'm a care-worn, hurtin, nasty "old" lady.

No fun, no fun at all.

I would have been 4 years on Femara in April.

But cant stick it.Whole different me, and not one it is fun to be anymore.

Love to you, and wishing you better luck.J

Mary, its not just Femara. Arimidex bites too !!

I find myself being grumpy, and sometimes downright nasty at times.

I got a telling off from DH a couple of weeks ago for 'making loud remarks' to people in large supermarkets !!!! I know I am doing it, if I stand back for someone to pass, or hold a door for them, and then they proceed to sail by me silently, I say, very loudly, 'Thankyou' so sarcastically. I never used to do this sort of thing, but now it just seems to flow out of my mouth ! DH is threatening not to come with me anymore if I don't mend my ways!!! This'll suit me fine because I don't want him trailing along behind me seeing what I'm spending, I have lied for years about my clothes spending, I don't know why he's taken to coming along to 'help'. (He doesn't, he just makes me go in food stores, and avoid my favorite dress shops.)

I also, like Joan, curse other drivers much more than I ever did.

I just do not suffer fools gladly anymore.

I just won't go to the door if I don't want to, nor answer the 'phone, I am being so cussed awkward with anyone who gets in my way.I just avoid contact with anyone, unless I WANT to see them.

Best of it is, I know I am doing it !! I wasn't this way before Arimidex.

Isabella.

Isabella, I'm sorry.I should have said AIs!Of course Arimidex bites too.Anything that depletes our estrogen will bite.

Hey I make loud remarks too.I mean really--you're standing there hurting, while some(PIG) barges in a door YOU opened.I generally say, not quietly,"Guess noone sees me, even though I'm larger than life!"

Havent QUITE gotten to "What are YOU looking at?"to the next person.

Yeah.Why the hell should just ANYONE get to see us?

I was just buying my calender for '08.And ruefully thinking how each month, of old, used to be full of "dates" and happy plans.

Now my calendr is full of...doctor appointments.And I could prefiull in a DailyPlanner:

Monday:

Pry myself out of bed

Hurt while making breakfast.EAT breakfast.Feed Woody

Suffer

Suffer

Suffer

Walk Woody.While hurting in the knees and feet

Suffer

Suffer

Suffer

etc.

Mary--I've been off for 6 weeks.Feeling no better, in fact my knees are desperate now, climbing in & out of car.It really does make me SO not myself!

And I think I wont get better.My estrogen has been depleted, is why I'm hurtin'.And I'm not likely to make enough now, to help matters.

The only good thing since quitting has been that my joint pain doesnt wake me out of sleep any more.

So THAT's nice!

But you are younger.And the oncs ARE learning.Too late for me, but hopefully not for you.

If AIs really get bad, you CAN switch to Tamox, which is piece of cake compaired to AIs.

And, I've learned, that the secret of taking AI is to stop BEFORE the SEs become totally indelable.

My onc stopped me when I became completely empty-headed.

But I think I should have stopped LAST winter, when the dizziness made me actually fall to the ground, on my walk one day.

I got a vacation out of that and DID recover except for a lot of the joint pain.

<sigh>Should never have gone back to taking it.

My onc DID suggest Tamox.

I shouldda accepted it.

Maryl, I understand how you feel, I get that way too.  When I was taking Cymbalta, it wasn't so bad.  Maybe you need to try a different antidepressant or have the dose adjusted.

I sure hope you can get it straightened out, it is miserable to feel that way.

Thanks Maryl, I just sent this picture to work to pass out to everyone.  Love it.

WOW !! Maybe it is the femara--I said earlier, that I didn't think it was, but after reading all your posts,



I see myself in ALOT of them. I cuss at other drivers, and the radio, and it seems like any little thing



"ticks" me off. I use to be a fun-lovin, easy going person, but not anymore. I thought it was the holidays



making me miserable, but after thinking about it, I've been miserable for quite a while, and sometimes,



I can't even stand myself. Thank-you Maryl for the advice. I put it on me desktop--maybe if I read it



everyday, it will help.

Have not posted in a long time.......saw my oncologist for routine check up today and again told him how my quality of life has just gone down the tubes due to my joints.....I walk like I am old, I feel old......right after my chemo and radiation I swear I felt better than now. My fingers and toes are still tingly from the Taxol and now all of this.....it just wears me out. I do take Effexor xl and it helps. I had been taking too much Aleeve and today my blood would hardly clot. But I have to take something.......have been on Femara one year.

I recently switched to Femara after taking Arimidex for almost two years to see if I would get any relief from joint pain.  I haven't really noticed a difference, but I do seem to have a shorter fuse lately....although I think I've been on a shorter fuse since I was diagnosed.  Half the time I don't care enough about things to react to them and the other half it seems like I have to really work at not losing control when I get angry...seems like I can go from irritable to total rage in an awfully short period of time.

I generally am in some kind of pain pretty much every day and just try to do my best to cope with it.

I am also afraid of what I might say or do at work.

Liz