Tamoxifen as treatment not prevention

No one? 😧

Hi @StarGirl,

Tamoxifen is an estrogen blocker to help stop cancer from growing. I read your other post re NDIS and noticed your her2 + but maybe you also have hormone positive cancer too.

Sometimes it's our pathology that determines treatment and sometimes people with mets have combinations of different treatments to help halt progression. 

Treatment is also determined by what other treatments you have already been given. For example in 2020 I was diagnosed with bc hormone positive and her2 negative. I had no lymph involvement but my bc was grade 3 cells and aggressive growth so i had surgery, chemo, radium and then tamoxifen. My body didn't handle tamoxifen so i was changed to Letrozole and then the cancer metastasisd. This doesn't mean it isn't effective for you. We are all different and our treatment is unique to us.

So I am now on Fulvestrant injections. Fulvestrant is part of the tamoxifen family and I also take ribociclib. 

It is good to understand your treatment and know what each drug does. Take to your oncologist to get a better understanding of treatment. 

Best wishes ❤️ 

https://www.bcna.org.au/resource-hub/articles/hormone-blocking-therapy-and-metastatic-breast-cancer/

Link above explains Tamoxifen 

Thank you @Cath62, yes I have two primaries - 1st is HER2+ and ER- and the 2nd is HER2- and ER+ ( overachieving in all the wrong ways 🤦‍♀️). I have already had quite a lot of treatment for both, including chemotherapy, radiation (same site as latest recurrence) and two surgeries already in the same area. Which is why they’re trying Tamoxifen now to try to treat recurrence no.3 of the ER+ cancer. I remain on Herceptin and Perjeta for the HER2+ bc which is metastatic. I am sort of running out of options so hoping Tamoxifen alone can actually work as a treatment. I am yet to experience any reduction in the current tumours but it’s only been 3 weeks so maybe I just need to wait longer? Star x

Yes @StarGirl 3 weeks is not long enough. I seem to have to wait at least 2 to 3 months between scans and decisions being made.  You sure have a complicated pathology with different primaries and mets too. Waiting is very hard, isn't it. How do you keep yourself distracted? For me I practice mindfulness to stop all the chatter in the mind. 

@Cath62 - I agree the waiting is definitely the worst part. Fortunately, with 2 school age kids and a husband who works pretty long hours, there’s always something to do, so I keep very busy. I think I’ve been running on pure adrenaline for the past decade or so! 

@StarGirl I hear you about running on adrenalin. I was a sole parent for 20 yrs and for a child that had lots of issues and very little help except from my parents occasionally. I do believe that the chronic stress I was under contributed to all the health issues I had. Time to slow down a bit if you can.