I really am starting to wonder how much harder having had chemo makes hormone therapy. Chemo does seem to have strong impacts on bones that seem to linger long which make the added battering to them given by hormone therapy a tougher road for the body to adapt to. I’d really like to hear from people on the blog who have had these circumstances ,have managed to soldier thru them and are now coping ok.
I did not have chemo -just lumpectomy and radiation -have been on Letrozole/ Femara 11 months and my body - touchwood - seems to have adapted and the early joint pain , hot flushes etc seem to have abated. I do not however know about the impact on my cholesterol levels which spiked dramatically after starting hormone therapy.
The only thing I really did to help with side effects was to keep moving - a daily one hour walk sometimes 2 and a gentle stretch/ balance class twice weekly.I have been forced this past month to be sedentary because of eye surgery and was worried but thus far all seems ok still.
Maybe a different type of hormone therapy may help you given how long you have been on Tamoxifen with strong side effects.There is no guarantee that all known side effects will occur for you -in your shoes I’d try an Aromatase Inhibitor to see if it’s less debilitating but in the knowledge that there is likely to be an adaption phase to the new drug for your body for some months.
Basically if we have had Er+ breast cancer hormone therapy of some type or other it seems the only protection available atm to reduce the risk of recurrence.
