Someone on this site said that she had her clothes on and off “faster than Stripper on Speed”. Very funny and very true. Have to keep reminding my self that people can sometimes see me when I am sitting on the settee knitting in my pants and bra!! Never see Kylie looking flushed. Lol. Maybe she isn’t on hormone therapy
Debbie
xxx
As usual girls you have hit the nail on the head! love all the jokes and they make me smile 
i too have noticed that quite often - b ut not always - I am very cold just before the hot one - husband usually notices before me and says, ‘you are about to have a hot one’ - then I do!
I am 2 years down the line with Taxoxifen and a 4 month break on Exemestane and I sleep now most nights through the night, something that was impossible due to sweats every 2 hours at first - also many less sweats during the day. Still get lots but they are further apart. Good luck everyone, hope all your hot ones get less and less.
hey girls we could become the fastest strippers going and earn megga bucks .but joking aside
its frustrating first you freeze then you burn up ,and when you burn up you cant concentrate on anything. who says woman have got it made
Hi to you all,
I still take my clothes off faster than a stripper on speed! I could not get my clothes off fast enough in BHS today when my sweat started, this time only hat, scarf, gloves and coat, I am so fed up with layering! Night sweats are also the pits, have given up on the duvet and layer the bedclothes, sheet, 3 blankets and eiderdown, these are on and off during the night depending on how hot i get. Hubby has been banished to the spare bedroom, he is either freezing or boiling and his body heat, well it is just not a sexy look me dripping against him! I usually wake around 3am in a pool of sweat on the pillow, now i use 4 pillowcases on my pillow as the sweaty smell is most unpleasant. I have bought the local co-o out of pillowcases and have 3 nightdresses on the go for during the night.
Gosh i also get really cold when not having a sweat but it is mainly my arms, even though they are kept under the covers they are freezing, they also feel cold to the touch. Wish i could find a pair of those long evening gloves to wear in bed you know the ones that go way up your arm, would look sooo good with my wincyette nightdress!
Only another 4 1/2 years on Arimididex and hopefully that will be the end of the sweats altogether!
All the best to everyone
Suzy
I have been on Arimidex since the beginning of September after a lumpectomy and have the usual hot flushes, but I am finding it very hard to cope with the violent chills/shivers that I get. I get this immense cold feeling 2 or 3 times a week and nothing I do, will warm me up and it usually lasts all day, from the time I get up, to the time I go to bed. When I get these, every joint/muscle in my body aches and my skin feels very sore when I touch it… just like flu symptoms and I’m fit for nothing. These chills, thankfully don’t happen during the night… only the night sweats.
My BCN has told me to persevere with the Arimidex until I see my Oncologist at the end of January, to see if the side effects plateau out. I can’t make any plans for even 1 or 2 days ahead, as I can’t forecast when these damn chills are going to affect me :rolleyes:
When I mentioned it to my own GP… he’d not even heard of chills being a side effect of Armindex, so was no help at all.
Hi Spooks
You sound very much like i used to a couple of months ago, I was and still do complain that i can’t seem to regulate my termperature, i am either shivering with cold that can last for several hours of sweating so much that i can even smell it on myself, sorry if that is graphic. Are you taking anything for the hot flushes, i am on 9 chlonidine a day from my GP, they certainly take the edge of the sweats. The chills do cause the naseau, you don’t mention if you have that. Arimidex is known for joint pain, i get pain at night in bed when i sleep on the non operated side, my hip and leg ache, this wakes me up, i also have pain in my arm where the lymph nodes were removed.
Tell your GP that chills definately are a side effect of the Arimidex, my own GP is wonderful, so sympathetic and helpful without him i would be in a very sorry state. I know what you mean about not being able to plan ahead, i was so bad at one stage that i was having 3 sweats/flushes an hour and could not leave the house, my hubby would come in at night with me in floods of tears saying i could not cope anymore with them.
Now after 5 months on the Arimidex and with the chlonidine i have had a wonderful holiday to Corfu with hubby and have two more planned for next year. I do hope that you will be in the same position really soon. Please perserve with asking for help with your symptoms, you do not have to put up with this, there are treatments for flushes and chills that many of us have tried on these sites that really do help, if one doesn’t then you can try another.
I really do with you all the best,
Suzy
Hi Suzy, thanks for your reply.
I am coping OK-ish with the sweats which have lessened since I first started on Arimidex… down to about 9-10 in a 24hr period instead of one every hour! Sometimes I don’t even get one during the night now.
About 5 weeks ago my BCN suggested I took Starflower Oil capsules (with a minimum of 220mg of GLA) and it could be those that have helped with the sweats, also I don’t feel as tired as I did, she did say it would take a couple of months for me to notice any improvement from them, so perhaps they are beginning to work… but they don’t seem to have had any effect with the chills! I haven’t felt nauseous at all since I started on Arimidex. After my op on 10th Aug, I was put on Tamoxifen, but 2 weeks later, my right leg swelled up to the size of a balloon, a Doppler Scan showed no DVT but my Oncologist took me off them immediately.
The aches and pains haven’t so far, woken me in the night, but I do wake up some mornings with hip pain. I didn’t have any lymphnodes removed, but when I have the chills, the axillary scar and surrounding area becomes painful/sore. I had Grade 1 cancer / ER+ and the 5 lymphnodes removed, all checked out clear and I had 15 sessions of radiotherapy.
A few times I’ve had mad thoughts flit through my brain about not taking Arimidex or anything else and have searched on the internet to see if anybody has had the same low grade cancer as me and not taken the meds, to see what their prognosis has been after 5 years or so, but so far I’ve not come up with anything.
I have an appointment with my GP on 3rd January, so will discuss with him in more depth about Chlonidine (I shall go armed with printouts from here LOL)… it sounds a saviour. Has Chlonidine helped with lessening your chills?
Spooks
It drives me loopy…am freezing all day…and I swear I was a penguin in a former life! Yet, come half 8 at night and you can more or less set your watch by them now lol…whoooooosh on comes the internal broken central heating that my body has discovered. Quilt on, quilt off…the bit i hate is the clammy cold bit you get when a flush is subsiding…ive given up how many times my pillow gets turned over during the night…i know two nights ago i was really really bad…cos hubby snuggled up for a cuddle in his sleep and it woke him up…jeeeeesh how can you sleep that hot…errrrm daaaaahlink ive not slept properly for bloomin months because of it…youve just been to busy snoring to notice!
When I was getting the sweats during the night, from recommendations on this forum, I went and bought a Chillow… chillow.co.uk/ - I haven’t needed it yet though in the night LOL
Buttons, I know exactly what you mean about the ‘broken central heating’ cutting in during the evening… it’s like a thermostat suddenly coming unstuck! I have a white fleecy sweatshirt and thick white leg-warmers that I wear during the day and my hubby says I look like a polar bear. I dread to think of what our heating bills are like this winter.
Hi spooks
Been so busy with work and planning Christmas did not get back to this site till just now. the clonidine have been my salvation, I can up them to 18 to 20 a day if needed as they are so ok to take, thats what my lovely GP says anyway. The chills are definately lessening, i just feel clammy but my little towel i take everywhere with me helps with this. I think these drugs do take time to work, even the clonidine which i now have 3 3x a day took about a month to start kicking in and i really did not get any real effect until i went up to nine a day. I do not want to increase them until i go on holiday if i need to. My doctor thinks they are great for sweats, you could also try megace or some mild antidepressants which i have heard also help with the sweats and chills. Lets just say i do not intend to be like i was when i first started the Arimidex, my life was just one long waterfall of sweat and i could not leave the house or really go back to work. With Clonidine i have reduced my sweats from 3 an hour to about 1 every couple of hours, some are just a mild heating of my face and body some more intense with about one real sweat where i am dripping once a day. I can handle this as with clonidine it definately takes the intensity of the sweat away. Truth be told i even joke about them now, something i used to cry about a few months ago!!!
Best of luck for jan 3rd and let me know how you get on. I took loads of info from here when i went to my GP!
Suzy
Glad you are feeling better Suzy. I stopped my anti depressants which I had been taking for a year. It took my 10 days to work out why I felt so awful. Terrible PMT but no periods and awful flushes. The day I took a pill again, they stopped immediately. So looks like I’ll be on them for the 5 years I am on Tamoxifen. Please can I have your lovely GP???
Happy Xmas
Debbie
xx
Well… the last five days have been the best I’ve had since the op in August. Sweats total for the last 2 days = 6 per day. No chills at all since I first replied on this thread and best of all… no aches, no extreme fatigue either… I feel almost normal again… I just hope the bubble doesn’t burst with a vengeance.
I wonder if this can be attributed to the Starflower Oil Capsules taking effect?
Suzy, I did a Google search on Clonidine and it seems I might not be able to take them as they are listed as interacting with another couple of drugs I take for Arrhythmia.
Merry Xmas everyone and I hope 2008 is a good year for everybody x