Picked up my tamoxifen today and read the leaflet carefully–it is more alcoholic than wine!!! unfortunately i am only prescribed 2 teaspoons , but its a fun start to the day. The list of possible side effects were much scarier than the other brand i was given, along with percentage likely hood of blindness and death through strokes. (very small fortunately) dont think my brand is any more dangerous, they are just more cautious about the warnings.
Anyway I started to research it cos i had not heard of some of these side effects when i came across two bits of information. One was a couple of sites said if you were having problems sleeping dont take your tamoxifen at night, not heard that before.
Another two sites said do not have orange or lemon drinks an hour before you take it, and another said avoid grapefruit and exotic oranges altogether.
what do you think? surely if that were the case we would have been told about it. More of the dangers of googling?? We do tell people not to.
Hi,
Been on it for 3 months, like you Googling mad at the start.
I know it is only 3 months usage but I can honestly say I feel great, no issues, just a few hot sweats that Evening Primrose - 1 a day sorted out.
If what I feel so far is to go by I would recommend.
I know everyone is different, but just eat healthy as well.
Not heard the stuff about oranges/grapefruit before (except in relation to statins for cholesterol people).
There is all kinds of conflicting info about when to take it… at night to redcue the number of day time flushes (allegedly), in two parts (to redcue the flushes, allegedly) in the morning (to redcue hte night sweats allegedly). You see my pattern… I’ve tried all variations and it mad enot one jot of difference - think it’s because we are all different.
So, do you have your morning tipple with ice and a slice?
I remember posting about this a while back and def the grapefruit can affect how effective it is - all to do with an enzyme in the grapefruit. I was also told to avoid pomegranate too as it also can decrease effectiveness.
Poo, that sounds odd.
I’m just going to go with oncy’s recomendations and sod the se’s. I did OK on chemo, so don’t see why I shouldn’t when I get this far. I plan to take mine in the evenings, as at the mo I don’t rise 'til late am.
There’s been quite a lot of research into the effects of grapefruit on drugs and it’s well documented. You shouldn’t have too much grapefruit or juice if you’re on regular medication and you should never use grapefruit juice to wash pills down.
From what I understand grapefruit increases the effect of drugs. According to Wikipedia there have been some deaths caused by overdoses due to this effect. On the plus side there’s apparently research going on to use it so that people can have smaller doses of cancer drugs.
