CANCER UPDATE: Side Effects To Expect On Tamoxifen (2 months on hormone therapy)
Okay we’re straight hey you guys welcome back to my channel if you’re new or if you’ve followed me for a while hello and welcome back so today we’re going to talk about a couple things that i wish were on the internet and that’s really just about tamoxifen why i fear it my cancer story does tamoxifen get worse over time side effects as well as any advice that i have
For you so if you’re interested and if you are just so fearful of this drug and just want as much information as you can from other women sharing their story um just keep watching okay well first of all hey guys how are we doing if you follow me because of my cancer journey um or if you’ve never seen my face before that’s totally fine i have a whole playlist i’m
Gonna do tiny recap so in january i found out that i had dcis i ended up going to md anderson in houston and i ended up having to have a single mastectomy a uni uni mastectomy i don’t know you know i had a couple surgeries again all the videos are going to be linked there before i saw my oncologist before my last surgery she said that i would be taking tamoxifen
And i was so scared because once i first found out that i had cancer tamoxifen was the first thing that i had seen on like everything that said like this is horrible it like really messed up my body i’m so scared of it and along with all the other things that you see on the internet um that could possibly be your story like a mastectomy you just start to fear feel
Overwhelmed especially if you haven’t even got to your first appointment which i totally understand i knew after hearing also a lot of videos and podcasts about people talking about mastectomy sorry tamoxifen i knew that that’s what i did not want to take unfortunately that’s all i could take because i didn’t have a double mastectomy apparently according to
My oncologist anyway to sum that all up that was that it’s gonna be two months of taking tamoxifen after next week so once this video is live basically and i just want to share my experience i honestly put it off so long i was so scared that my oncologist would also be like hey i told you to start taking it now but i did check in with her and she’s like whenever
You feel like you’re ready i did wait until i was back home i had a little like i was back at work had a little like was working out too and had a little bit of a routine because i feel like that’s so important after a cancer diagnosis so let’s start with my fear of taking it and i’ll talk a little bit about my oncologist so i actually have my notes here so sorry
I keep looking there i’ve touched up on my fear so far like basically i was scared it was something i didn’t want to take you learn all these side effects and i think it also is important that i quickly look up when i was going through cancer i was making videos everything was fresh in my mind i totally forgot the definition it blocks estrogen so like your body
Reacts uh like you’re on menopause basically it blocks the effects of estrogen and or it blocks estrogen in exchange we get all of these uh menopausal symptoms and um the list goes on and on like it’s scary like it’s some scary stuff that’s on that list and i had so many fears like which i will talk about like weight gain and just like forgetting everything and
Well winking honestly was like a big big one i’m sure some of you guys could relate to that um and just like pain and feeling like a 50 year old’s body in a 24 year old’s body because that’s my age and i remember when i saw my oncologist i was so sure i did not want to take it and she ended up telling me that that was my only option i still remember claira’s day
Not really liking my oncologist like if you’ve been to md anderson all of your team is going to be wonderful for the most part i’ve had some negative experiences but it’s really like rare my oncologist definitely wasn’t someone that i felt i don’t know like i she her responses to things and it was just like very matter-of-fact and really didn’t really tell me too
Much about didn’t really explain too much and the only way i could explain it she felt like a little cold when i would ask her like is this the only thing it could take she’d be like yes and it’s like okay so like why you know what i mean and i felt like she was a little insensitive um when i was getting to the conclusion that if i had had a double mastectomy as
We were talking would i still be taking tamoxifen she had said something along the lines of you know that’s actually something that we don’t recommend 24 year olds to do that was like the longest response that she had actually given me that seemed like a little with more emotion i guess it’s not like i want to have a double mastectomy but she’s basically saying
Like we wouldn’t we won’t let you do that and again very cold so i don’t know you basically see your oncologist more than a new one after your you know diagnosis but a lot of people say that they love their oncologists so probably you will too i just didn’t like mine maybe just personal but i really just didn’t anyway to wrap that up i do also want to add in so
I’m so scared i wrote down a whole list of things that i wanted her to talk about like what about this side effect can you tell me about this i had so many questions for all my doctors actually i did ask her what do you generally hear from specifically young people when taking this drug like what’s the common issue or i don’t know how to phrase that right now but
You know what’s a common complaint that you hear young people say about this medication how are they reacting to this drug of course there’s some cases where it varies but for the most part the younger people tend to do the best um on the drug and i’m 20 but even in my the facebook groups that i’m at i’m sorry some of the 30 year olds are also doing pretty well
I do want to say i’m so early in things of course your body could change but we’ll talk about that a little bit later hopefully this is informational for all ages but i do think like there’s not that much aya so young people with cancer talking and going on tamoxifen on the internet talking about the subject so i really thought it was so important that i posted
This video so again sorry if i’m excluding people that are older if you are young or any age it’s so helpful if you leave a comment below talking about your experience and is it really as bad as people make it out to be let’s talk about side effects so i listed a couple things and i’m just going to go through them these are side effects and these are short-term
Technically like these are like physical that you notice right away versus like long-term effect long-term effects like blood clots and a thicker lining in your uterus like those things are scary still but some stuff that you don’t pick up at first right so two months in what am i experiencing so for the hot flashes after i started taking it i started to try to
Pay attention and it just had become summer and i was working and i work in sometimes in a fast-paced setting or for the most part it is actually fast-paced so i couldn’t really tell if it was hot flashes or not i would experience a min like kind of mini ones i don’t know if this is it like i would just get hot every now and then but like i would wear a sweater and
Then take i don’t know like do you guys you guys experience like all of a sudden you get cold and all of a sudden you get hot so i don’t know if it’s linked to tamoxifen either way they were they were pretty mini and um then i experienced one that was like i don’t know like four minutes long or something it was crazy and i want to say that i’ve actually skipped
Taking tamoxifen like three times accidentally of course like i get home and i’m so tired and i still kind of experience the heat throughout the day that are mini i know that acupuncture works pretty good for that so i would keep that in mind if you know if your hospital offers that another thing that they do say is coffee is not great for the hot flashes i do want
To say though like these responses these um hot flashes that that i was experiencing kind of went away like i don’t really experience that anymore and if i do it’s like more spread out um sometimes i experience it in the night which i will talk about but um for the most part like i think i’m not sure if it was tamoxifen honestly like i and over time i’ll be able
To tell you guys of course i think once the summer’s over i’d be able to tell a little bit better but like not gonna lie i’ve been i’m so impressed with my body what about mood swings i feel like i think i do have a little bit of mood swings i try to be conscious just because like after your experience you feel a little bit different and you feel differently
About life for the most part i do think i have mood swings though like i just want to be alone like i feel like i’m not a morning person i’m kind of like a night person but like i don’t want people to talk to me in the morning and i’d prefer to be alone i don’t know like is that coveted or is that like tamoxifen nothing crazy you know it’s not like one minute i
Don’t know like at least like in my head i experience it and it’s nothing crazy where i just like say it out loud it’s like a little bit more irritation but most of it is mental and very mental and very controlled i don’t that’s what i’ve experienced two months in so another thing that i was so scared of because i’m just such a workaholic like today i’m gonna film
Two videos i work 40 hours and then i do this on the side you know and edit for like 12 hours each week i’ve also been on tik tok by the way how funny i’ve been on take talk and surprisingly it’s kind of going really good oh and then like working out of course and everything like that i don’t think i’ve hit a depression state at all if anything the only depression
State i’ve ever had was once i learned that i had cancer so so far so good one of the things that i definitely have noticed every morning when i wake up i always have to drink some water like i have to chug water all day this is something that they tell you to do anyway but like i feel like i wake up dehydrated for sure let me know in the comments if that’s something
That you guys experience okay so insomnia before all of this i was i could sleep anywhere for the most part it’s been exactly the same i take my medication at night by the way um because you can either take it in the morning or take it at night i feel like at night i’d rather deal with like night sweats as a possibility uh fatigue throughout the day right if you
Take it in the morning as a possibility sometimes i have a little bit of trouble falling asleep but it’s never like i’m awake at like 10 in the morning sorry three in the morning for the most part it’s been pretty good i will say though that i do have noticed i think like twice i wake up and i’ll be hot for a little bit i’m still able to go to sleep um i actually
Have like really good sheets for that they’re like eucalyptus sheets i do remember i watched a video and these uh women that were on tamoxifen talked about how they got some sort of cooling water mattress that helps you fall asleep and regulate temperatures when you’re asleep i’ll try to link the video in the bottom okay so like if my family is watching this and
This is gonna get a little awkward i’m gonna talk about libido and whether or not uh it’s dry down there okay so libido i am single honestly i’m not too much of a sexual person i don’t think that that’s changed too much perhaps if i was in a relationship i would be able to give you more information on that am i experiencing dryness not really honestly i feel
Like it’s maybe like a little bit but nothing noticeable as far as fatigue i do feel like some days i just like after work i just stay in bed the whole day i kind of did that before but like sometimes i do find it a challenge to just keep hustling on my side hustles like this on my downtime but luckily i do have days off like today as far as bone pain i was so
Aware of my body before i took the medication because i wanted to see like what will i feel like difference or whatever before i took tamoxifen i was actually experiencing like kind of like a sharp pain on the tail end of my spine it was like kind of painful but it might have just been where i was sleeping when i was like because i was sleeping my sister’s couch
For like three months i still felt that and when i was taking tamoxifen so when i had my own bed and blah blah i think that working out definitely helps with that kind of pain even if it’s not from tamoxifen if it was just from like growing getting older and et cetera et cetera so i would suggest lifting weights i was experiencing that before tamoxifen so and i
Feel fine now i but i am pretty active which i will talk about hair thinning honestly so i’ve been letting my hair grow out uh if you watch my earlier videos you guys will see that my hair was like this short or whatever i have thin hair in general um there are products that you guys can take but for the most part i feel like everything is looking fine that was
Such a big fear of mine too because i already have thin hair but luckily we’re we’re doing good i think like over time we shall see so weight gain this is a big one right i don’t know because i had i had three surgeries in one year and six months i had a lot of recovery so i don’t know you guys i have been working out um and i feel like i don’t notice that much
Of a difference but it does take a while for that to kind of kick in i don’t know um and then i started talking with my working out for like three weeks so that i think long term we’ll have to find out i want to say that it’s a little harder to stay toned but maybe it’s just because like i need to be working out six times a week definitely not blowing up though i
Just feel like a little bit more fuller in the size than i naturally am and another thing is this is really common it could affect your menstrual cycle having an irregular period or it staying exactly the same is both normal in the in tamoxifen so for everyone it’s different mine has been exactly the same honestly that’s something that my oncologist was thinking
She’s like i think you’re gonna do fine i don’t think it’ll affect you again just because of my age if it lasts you you know like two weeks instead of you know the three days that it is for most of women that’s horrible and i hope that that’s not you but know that that is common obviously speak to your oncologist and your gyno make sure that this is all normal
And you know i’m not a doctor you guys and as far as like hunger linked to like weight gain which i was talking about earlier uh i don’t know you guys i really don’t know if it has affected my weight gain because sorry my hunger because i do feel hungrier but it’s normally on the days that i work out so i’m gonna link it to working out will i say that i’ve been
Working out as much as i would like to no does the side effects of tamoxifen get worse over time or better when i asked her that she said because i told her basically like women have sometimes said on the group chats that it does get worse over time or better over time and she’s just like that’s not like a really general rule like there’s no like science behind
That or anything like that uh typically it stays the same but i do want to say like keep in mind for a lot of women it does change over time maybe you know these side effects you might not be experiencing them at all and it’ll stay like that for the next five years or ten years that you take it or vice versa you experience so much side effects and it stays like
That for the rest of the five years and of course and then it just might vary like you may start with a lot and then it goes down and then it comes back up hopefully this is not me either and then lastly i’m just going to talk about some advice that i have i watched this one video because i was looking for like tamoxifen experience and i found this one video of
This girl talking about like her and her experience so far taking it i will link it down below found this so helpful because i was so scared you guys i was so scared of taking this pill um and i remember she just like seemed so bubbly and smiling and i was like wow if someone could be happy and going through all of this and on this pill that people say that you
Get depressed uh irritated and just i don’t know like not wanting to get out of bed experiencing fatigue and all of these things that sound so scary and that can affect your you know can give you other cancers and can affect your life but seeing someone smiling and talking about their experience uh through this like that made me so cheerful so anyway i found
Her video she had said that before to put that fear aside before she took her pill she said this is the happiness project this is something along the lines of like this will help cure my cancer or something like that where you basically just instead of like taking this p this pill out of fear um you know you say something like along the lines of this is gonna
Help me i don’t know if that made any sense she said it a lot better than i did the first times that i took took it i so scared um i looked up a meditation a guided meditation on how to switch your mindset and that’s what i ended up doing i meditated on the bottle before i took it and then i started doing that for the first week and i really really found that
Helpful so i think i i would suggest that you guys do the same i will give you guys a better another update in like a couple months i’m going to be having my neck surgery in a month-ish and i’m going to be getting an areola if you have no idea what i’m talking about as far as where i’m at with my cancer journey i have a whole playlist so you guys can go ahead and
Check that out i post every mondays lifestyle cancer and everything in between i will see you guys super duper soon
Transcribed from video
CANCER UPDATE: Side Effects To Expect On Tamoxifen (2 months on hormone therapy) By Werallgonnadie
