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Re: Weight Loss on Tamoxifen .... Progress Report
Thankyou everyone for your encouragement. That's really important for me. Yes, Brenda, I have lost my craving for sweet things, they don't "speak" to me like they used to :), but if I start nibbling at them, the craving returns. Actually, my biggest downfall is white bread and peanut butter. I'd eat one piece and then think "Well I guess I'll stop when either the jar or the loaf are gone, let's see which is first." :)11Views0likes0CommentsWeight Loss on Tamoxifen .... Progress Report
Happy Christmas Everyone. 3 months ago I posted on this forum announcing my experiment to see if it really is impossible to lose weight on Tamoxifen. I've been blogging every week and a handful of lovely ladies have been following along. It has really been important to me to know that people have been watching and supporting me, and I want to thank all the ladies who have read my posts. Today is the end of the first stage of the experiment and you can see the results at https://girlvstamoxifen.wordpress.com/2016/12/23/progress-report/ complete with photos. The results aren't spectacular (I'm not very disciplined, it turns out) but they are significant. I hope you'll check it out.316Views0likes8CommentsRe: hair return
Your website says "Yes. The good news is that hair loss from chemotherapy is only temporary and your hair will grow back once your treatment is finished. Approximately six weeks after your final treatment, you will have grown a short but thick covering of hair over your entire scalp. - See more at: https://www.bcna.org.au/understanding-breast-cancer/treatment/chemotherapy/hair-loss/#sthash.4lAxnZdr.dpuf" That statement needs a caveat in order not to be misleading.2Views0likes0CommentsRe: hair return
But Pauline, it may be rare when you consider every woman who has had chemotherapy, but when you take just those that have received docetaxal, it is not. https://www.schmidtandclark.com/wp-content/uploads/Alopecia-FECdoce-Kluger-AnnOnco2012.pdf http://journals.lww.com/amjdermatopathology/Abstract/2011/06000/Permanent_Alopecia_After_Systemic_Chemotherapy__A.3.aspx and therefore any patient being offered docetaxal should be warned of this risk beforehand. I for one, would not have taken it if I'd known in advance. It looks like the lawyers in the US are getting very excited at the prospect of the class actions they are going to milk undertake. In Europe, apparently, the label for the drug has warned of the possibility of permanent hair loss for a decade, but in Australia, even the Policy Officers of the most important breast cancer advocacy group are denying it.3Views0likes0CommentsRe: hair return
KatieT said: I'm very glad to hear yours came back. You can feel together and put that behind you. My treatment was over 16 months ago. It isn't coming back properly. I hope that more women in the future get told that permanent hair loss is a risk of some chemotherapies. Everything on the internet and everything they tell you at hospitals makes you think it's temporary and just something you need to survive and then you go back to being yourself again. Anyway, I'm really glad things returned to normal for you in the hair department. I'm so sorry Katie. I was on FECD, D for Docetaxal, and when I found out 2%, that's one in 50!, of women don't get their hair back I flipped out in the oncologist's office. She told me she'd never heard of such a thing, just not true. The next dose I was back in her office with the research paper but she had looked it up herself. "Yeah, it's 2%", she said. When my hair came back she admitted that she had been worried. So at least there is now one oncoologist in Australia who knows the risks and hopefully is informing women before they start treatment.6Views0likes0CommentsRe: Losing Weight on Tamoxifen
Pushup are great because they work the core and chest. Lots of muscles in one hit. 22 is lots of pushups so I would think that would be a great start. My husband just walks, and does pushups, and dips off the coffee table and he's looking much trimmer. When I came off chemo I was very pudgy because of that effect where the chemo shreds your fine capillaries and you end up with lots of fluid leaking under the skin. That passed in a few weeks though.47Views0likes0CommentsRe: Losing Weight on Tamoxifen
Tracey 1967 said: Michelle, you give me hope. I am 24 kilos overweight. I have lost 10 kilos very slowly in the last year. It's hard work - really monitoring your food and increasing exercise to get it all off. I also look bloated around the waist. I am also wondering if it causes water retention. Hi Tracey, AFAIK Tamoxifen doesn't cause water retention, but menopause certainly causes weight gain on the abdomen. When pre and post menopausal women were matched for age, it was discovered that they both put weight on at the same rate, but in different places. The menopausal women put weight on the stomachs. For me, it seemed like 2 weeks after starting tamoxifen my weight was the same, but all my fat had migrated to my stomach. Interestingly, with my high protein diet and lots of weight training, the weight seems to be coming off my stomach first. Or at least, that's where it's most noticeable to me. My muffin top has gone. 10kg is *amazing*. I hope you're doing weight training of some sort too. Cutting calories without resistance workouts will lead to loss of muscle and bone and then it will be harder and harder to lose weight because your BMR will have gone down. Also, at our age, we have to start worrying about falls. Muscle mass will help us keep our balance. And, muscles look nice. That's the difference between young and old bodies; how much muscle they have. At least superficially. After 30 we start to lose 3-5% of our muscle mass per decade unless we take steps to stop it. One good thing about Tamoxifen, we don't have to worry too much about osteoporosis while we're on it. Perhaps the book "strong women stay young" would be a good place to start, if you're not already lifting weights. I don't mean squatting half your own weight in a sweaty gym with scary equipment, (but you'll get faster results if you can do that). My "gym" lives in a box in the lounge room. Now I must stop procrastinating and lift my own weights! take care Samantha2Views0likes0Comments
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