tamoxifen

Willow, your story is similar to mine. I was diagnosed in 2010 with cancer in the the right breast, a very aggressive one. Had a wide local excision to start with, but surgeon wasn't happy with result -lymph nodes were affected. So then I had a right mastectomy and auxiliary clearance, followed by 3 months of chemo. The oncologist put me on tamoxifen. 12 months later, cancer was found in the left breast! It wasn't as big or aggressive as the right one, but I asked for mastectomy anyway. Didn't need chemo for that one. But I was really angry, having been told that tamoxifen is supposed to reduce further instances of cancer. When I asked the oncologist how it could have happened the answer was; "well, you're menopausal now, so we'll put you on Arimidex." I couldn't believe it. How ridiculous that my body state was a supposed cause for the tamoxifen not to work originally. Arimidex is pretty brutal-joint pain, insomnia, anxiety, depression (I've begun a group on here "Depression and anxiety"), but I have secondary metastasised cancer in my back too, so I have to keep taking it. Going ok now, most of the time. How are you now? Kathleen. :)