Hello Harley64,
Sorry to hear about your diagnosis. I can relate to your statement of “trying to make sense of it all” at the beginning. As the well used cliche states, try and take things one step at a time.
Regarding your initial post below:
- Are the oestrogen levels checked prior to subscribing Letrozole and monitored throughout?
No, not as a matter of course. However, there are private/online facilities offering such services. I would suggest you speak with medical staff first if it is of concern to you before parting with your cash etc. What is your reason for asking about this? Is it for a baseline measure? Subsequent tests to ensure any treatment, natural or otherwise, is having a positive effect?
I would not mind having one at the mo just to make sure my oestrogen production has been depleted by approx 97% from the impact of Anastrozole!! However, in the end, would baseline testing or subsequent testing be of major use when, for example, it is not known what level of oestrogen it takes for hormone receptor cancer to grow and develop in the first place.
If you do not know already, you may find it helpful to find out if the cancer is strongly hormone receptive and whether it is double hormone positive. Such information may help you and medical staff weigh up the pros and cons of Letrozole or other similar treatments. In the end, it is up to us whether we accept the treatments or not.
- Has anyone sourced natural ways to reduce their oestrogen without the need for meds?
Nature has already considerably reduced your oestrogen supply as no doubt you felt with when you went through your difficult menapause period! As far as I understand it, ovarian testoserone production (which is converted to oestrogen via aromatase) will decline 12-15 years after menapause (although I have seen various time frames!). However, it can also be produced in other body sites such as the adrenal glands. Wherever it is being produced, it should decline with age so less to be converted and circulate!
Maintaining a healthy weight/body fat ratio should also help in reducing production so diet and exercise are important. “Natural ways” seem to focus on being careful with what you put in your body (e.g. eating organic/processed reduced diet/low or no alcohol diet) as well as what you put on it (e.g. paraben free products etc). There is a whole host of “natural” advice out there, trouble is some of it is just preying on the vulnerable parting with their cash, contradictory (eg. drink milk/don’t drink milk, eat soy/don’t eat soy) and lacking significant research. So much advice - enough to leave your head feeling like mush and you paranoid about anything that is going in and on your body. Just as a point, if there was so much oestrogen in certain foods and products to have significant effect, then I am surprised that Tamoxifen has not been found to be more effective in post menapausal women than Aromatase inhibitors, as it acts upon circulating oestrogen rather than ceasing it’s production.
I have seen some foods listed as “natural aromotase inhibitors”. For example, white button mushrooms, onions, citrus fruits, pomegranete. Not sure about any research on their effectiveness and the quantities you may need to eat! There are supplement type products available, for example as marketed on Amazon, which claim they also reduce oestrogen production.
In the end, which ever way oestrogen is reduced, one will surely still feel the effects of this in one way or another. Hence, I would rather stick with the tried and tested medication route for now as well as maintaining healthy weight, diet, exercise etc.
3. Finally does anyone have positive experiences of this medication!?
I have been on Anastrozole for about a year and 7 months. The worst side effect I have had is excrutiating lower leg cramps mainly at night. Fortunately this has not happened often. I have also experienced more drying out of mucous membranes whether in my nose or elsewhere, and being a bit more stiff when getting out of a chair!! However, I have not had anything that I have not found manageable or life destroying at the moment.
Before I started my first pack, I was apprehensive and stared at them for a few days. I think I had had enough of it all by then, i.e. chemo, herceptin, surgery and complications, radio and bishposphonates and aromotase inhibitors to now think about. ENOUGH! In the end, I thought I had to give it a try and just see. My cancer was ER8, so a good candidate for treatment.
If the side effects were recking quality of life to an unacceptable level for me, then I would discuss it with Onco, have a break, try and work my way through the other products before giving up completely. But I will not know this unless I give them a good go. Fortunately, it all seems to be ok at the moment. Long may it continue.
In the end, we are all individuals. We have to weigh up our individual risks and benefits and make informed decision that we are comfortable with. I wish you the very best with your treatment and treatment decision making.
Best Wishes,
Chick x