Pain in hands

Going through breast cancer treatment Hormone therapy
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I finished chemo on 12th December and initially had mild tingling in hands and feet which went away. I have recently finished radiotherapy and started letrozole 2 weeks ago. For the past 3 days I have been getting tingling and numbness in hands which is there during the day but does get better as the day goes on. However at night I experience the worse pain which feels like shooting pain. It only eases off if I stand up and walk about. I have not slept for 3 days. Paracetamol and ibuprofen don’t help. I have tried wearing a wrist splint at night which doesn’t help at all. Any ideas what this is and what I can do. I will email my team tomorrow but can’t imagine they’ll be able to fix this immediately. I just need some sleep.

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I developed carpal tunnel syndrome whilst on Letrozole, & it seems to be the same as you describe. It was worse at night & first thing in the morning, was sometimes numb or tingly which was ok, but sometimes felt like painful fire shooting out of my fingers & was agonising.

I started wearing splints in bed at night, & doing these exercises daily which helped a bit https://youtu.be/tH0AuoLAJBg?si=o3uZx04Vhl_BpM8y

I would sometimes do elements of the exercises at night when the pain woke me up - the stretches seemed to ease it a bit.

I hope it passes swiftly.

Xx

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Hi, i had terrible joint snd muscle pain on letrozole too. I was on the Sun Pharmaceutical brand and asked to be changed to Accord brand. Its made a huge difference- still some joint stiffness and pain but nothing like it was before. My BC nurse said its like habing a supermarket own brand lasagne versus M&S - same ingredients but hugely different quality!

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Trouble is you have no control over the brand you’re given by the pharmacist.

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You can ask your GP to specify the preferred brand in the notes section of the prescription when they write it up. If your regular pharmacist doesnt have the new brand or can’t order it you can ask GP for a paper prescription and take it to another pharmacy who has the brand. You might have to phone pharmacies to check if the carry the brand.