Early Days on Letrozole
So, I started taking Letrozole on the 1/6/18. My oncologist says I have to be on it for 10 years as several ongoing studies are indicating cancer preventing benefits beyond the seven year mark. It...
Forum Discussion
Hey @kmakm,
Gate crashing again. I know it's a different beast but being slammed into menopause through chemo and then having your hormones manipulated by drugs is in no way normal no matter which drug is doing it and I understand perfectly how you are feeling.
Your poor body is trying to recover from being poisoned and having its natural cycle of hormones stopped like hitting a brick wall. Especially when there was no sign of menopause before. Your body wasn't even thinking about it yet.
The worst thing about this compared to natural menopause I feel, is that you can't take anything to counteract some of the side effects like you could try in normality.. No HRT, no remifen, no promensil, no anything with phytoestrogens, no nothing because they just can't tell you if it is going to interfere with your meds or not. The feeling of "this is about as good as it's going to get and there is zilch I can do to help it" is overwhelming. Angry....absolutely. I suspect some is caused by what your body is going through and a lot at the situation of feeling completely helpless. Why should you feel so crap when before treatment you felt perfectly fine.
The nuclear grade flushes had pretty much settled to a dull murmur with me by the time I had finished radiation. (13 weeks post chemo) After four months on HT I was literally ready to jump off a bridge. There was no way I was going to be able to live like that. No sleep. Waking up sweating. Serious mood swings and depressive funks. Tripping out of bed because my hips had frozen up from lying still etc etc etc.. Not to mention the brain malfunction thing. It was starting to affect my work and I had spent a week in tears. F*&k this shit.
I had to go off it to see what would happen and I thought that a couple of weeks in the scope of 10 years really wasn't going to make that much difference. I s/w my onc and rad onc and they both agreed.
I know you want to stick the six months but maybe a little break might give your body a chance to level out and then reapproach. Each time I have had a break something has settled a bit.
That first three week break off it calmed the intensity of the flushes by half and all the side have gotten better and better each time I have a break.
I feel for you lovely.
Big hugs.....xoxoxoxoxo
Gate crashing again. I know it's a different beast but being slammed into menopause through chemo and then having your hormones manipulated by drugs is in no way normal no matter which drug is doing it and I understand perfectly how you are feeling.
Your poor body is trying to recover from being poisoned and having its natural cycle of hormones stopped like hitting a brick wall. Especially when there was no sign of menopause before. Your body wasn't even thinking about it yet.
The worst thing about this compared to natural menopause I feel, is that you can't take anything to counteract some of the side effects like you could try in normality.. No HRT, no remifen, no promensil, no anything with phytoestrogens, no nothing because they just can't tell you if it is going to interfere with your meds or not. The feeling of "this is about as good as it's going to get and there is zilch I can do to help it" is overwhelming. Angry....absolutely. I suspect some is caused by what your body is going through and a lot at the situation of feeling completely helpless. Why should you feel so crap when before treatment you felt perfectly fine.
The nuclear grade flushes had pretty much settled to a dull murmur with me by the time I had finished radiation. (13 weeks post chemo) After four months on HT I was literally ready to jump off a bridge. There was no way I was going to be able to live like that. No sleep. Waking up sweating. Serious mood swings and depressive funks. Tripping out of bed because my hips had frozen up from lying still etc etc etc.. Not to mention the brain malfunction thing. It was starting to affect my work and I had spent a week in tears. F*&k this shit.
I had to go off it to see what would happen and I thought that a couple of weeks in the scope of 10 years really wasn't going to make that much difference. I s/w my onc and rad onc and they both agreed.
I know you want to stick the six months but maybe a little break might give your body a chance to level out and then reapproach. Each time I have had a break something has settled a bit.
That first three week break off it calmed the intensity of the flushes by half and all the side have gotten better and better each time I have a break.
I feel for you lovely.
Big hugs.....xoxoxoxoxo