Has anyone found anything that helps with menopausal symptoms when taking Tamoxifen? I’m very grateful for my treatment but I’ve been left feeling that I’ve aged 20 years as a result of my diagnosis. If I read anymore about the wonders of HRT or hear someone saying how marvellous it is and that every woman should take it I’ll scream! There’s such conflicting evidence about supplements too with some evidence saying that the phytoestrogens we’re told to avoid can be beneficial. I don’t want to avoid something which could help only to be told in a couple of years that it’s recommended. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of research in this area. If anyone has any advice I’d be grateful 
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I have a book by Karen Newby . The natural menopause method
Lots of advice about which foods to eat by symptom .
She also mentions ( quality ) supplements, I guess you’d have to run them by your BCN .
I’m taking Anastrazole but I take vitamin d/k, magnesium glycinate and co enzyme q10 . It’s my joints that ache , no hot sweats .
Good luck x
Hello @loobers
I share your pain the “noise” about HRT and how “amazing” it is can be deafening.
I can recommend Dr Annice Mukherjee: a hormone/menopause doctor who had breast cancer in her early 40’s so totally gets the menopause/breast cancer thing. Her book the Complete Guide to the Menopause is brilliant and you can follow her on Instagram under the.hormone.doc
AM xxc
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Hi @adoptedmanc ‘deafening’ is such a good description of how I’m finding the HRT conversation. It worries me that I’ll get dementia, heart disease and every other thing they say HRT prevents! Thanks for the book recommendation. I’ll take a look 
I have that one too .
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Hi @loobers
I’m been on Letrozole for 6/7 months which reduces all the oestrogen in your whole body. I had been on HRT systemic and vaginal for years before bc and had to come off it all last April. A few weeks later symptoms started to raise their ugly head.
I had surgery in July 2023, chemo with Herceptin (on this until Sept 2024) from September, radiotherapy in January the started the Letrozole. I was bi lateral invasive cancer, two primary tumours, one each in boob.
Chemo side effects took over most of the menopausal symptoms but by January I was feeling awful again. In Nov 23 there was a study about vaginal oestrogen with Tamoxifen/letrozole/Anastrozole and results suggested no impact on mortality. Vaginal oestrogen was available on Tamoxifen and some were moved off Letrozole to Tamoxifen to be able to vaginal oestrogen.
You haven’t mentioned your menopausal symptoms. I have achy joints, helped by walking, stretching, a monthly massage and gentle exercise. Hot flushes were horrendous, mainly from 7pm to 7 am, so I changed the time I took the Letrozole, moved 1 hour earlier to 5pm from bedtime, then changed to 12 noon, then 8 am, not change in the hot flushes. It woke me up every time before the flush happened, then id struggle to get back to sleep. I could be woken up from 3-7 times a night, suffice to say I was knackered with such poor sleep. I tried a sleeping tablet, Zopliclone but it didn’t stop me waking up.
The vaginal atrophy was getting worse aswell, to the point I couldn’t sit on an exercise bike, I had hoped to get fitter.
I asked my breast care nurse what could be done and was referred to a menopause specialist via the NHS in February, but 4 months on I was still waiting and I was getting worse. I found out that the same consultant could be seen privately, I booked it Friday and saw them on Monday. I was prescribed Fezolinetant (veoza) for the hot flushes on a private prescription to try for one month. It has reduced the hot flushes significantly, study suggest 50-70% improvement. It is a non hormonal drug, hopefully should be on the NHS by January 2025.
I was also offered Oxybutynin which is available on the NHS, there are several anti depressants and other drugs that treat hot flushes , see here Menopause - Treatment - NHS I decided on the above.
They also wrote to my GP to prescribe Imvaggis and Blissel, very low dose vaginal oestrogen, 2 weeks on I can feel a massive difference. We discussed the risks and benefits of taking vaginal HRT and that after 6 weeks they is no sign of it in your blood stream. Within the first 6 weeks some oestrogen can pass through but it’s still a very low dose. We discussed my Predict score https://breast.predict.cam/ and they have written to my consultant. This was to decide if my % was low whether I could come of Letrozole, for me being bi lateral with two separate primary tumours, I would prefer to stay on it with help with side effects. The consultant said they have ladies who have come of their hormone blockers, some who take systemic HRT and some like me, it’s an individual choice and risk. I will hopefully now see them in the NHS clinic for my follow up.
I would also suggest looking at www.menopauseandcancer.co.uk, Dani Binnington has had her own diagnosis and talks to many experts to get help with symptoms. There is a podcast with an oncologist which I found very interesting.
www.maggies.org so do a menopause session. I attended one in Velindre, Cardiff after I’d seen the menopause specialist and still found it very helpful.
Dr Liz O’Riordan also has information on her social media/youtube.
I looked into ‘natural’ help but many are not tested or regulated like medicines are. Many things like Black Cohosh are not recommended for those with a bc diagnosis. If you were considering herbs etc please look at
MSKCC which will look at interactions with your medicines.
I know I rattled on for a while but wanted to let you know about my story.
I hope this helps 
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Hi @naughty_boob thank you so much for taking the time to reply to me. You’ve given me really useful insight into your experience and I’ll certainly take a look at the links you’ve provided. My main symptoms are hot flushes, joint pain, mood changes and sleep issues. I could go on 
It’s good to know I’m not alone. It must have been very hard to have to give up your HRT on top of dealing your diagnosis. Thanks again
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Yes it was, giving up the HRT that I’d tweaked several times over the years. It had been settled for about 15 months controlling all my symptoms to some degree of success. The clinical nurse specialist that ran the Maggie’s menopause course said that they generally ask you to reduce your HRT after a bc diagnosis rather than come off straight away. Hopefully that causes less side effects to come back with such severity.
I do worry about not having HRT, the heart issues ( already have tachycardia with a family history of heart disease) and dementia, but then I worry about the cancer coming back. There needs to be more research into help for cancer patients who take hormone blockers, I’m sure there is some more out there but they take years to do and then more time to assess and publish the results.
Take care and let us know if you decide to try something and if it helps🥰
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That’s really interesting you got the vaginal oestrogen ,as I thought they wouldn’t prescribe for AIs, only Tamoxifen,
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It’s hard as ultimately it’s our choice but what a choice to have to make. Quality of life or possible recurrence! Thanks again for your response I do appreciate it 
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Hi @klf
This is the research that was published November 2023 studying ladies after breast cancer.
Results The 2 cohorts comprised 49 237 females with breast cancer (between 40 and 79 years of age) and 5795 breast cancer–specific deaths. Five percent of patients with breast cancer used vaginal estrogen therapy after breast cancer diagnosis. In vaginal estrogen therapy users compared with HRT nonusers, there was no evidence of a higher risk of breast cancer–specific mortality in the pooled fully adjusted model (HR, 0.77; 95% CI, 0.63-0.94).
Conclusions and Relevance Results of this study showed no evidence of increased early breast cancer–specific mortality in patients who used vaginal estrogen therapy compared with patients who did not use HRT. This finding may provide some reassurance to prescribing clinicians and support the guidelines suggesting that vaginal estrogen therapy can be considered in patients with breast cancer and genitourinary symptoms.
This was about mortality not recurrence.
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Hi I never suffered menopausal symptoms because i’m dairy intolerant and therefore use
Soya milk and soya products. the first hot flush was felt when i started on Letrozole, but it only lasted one week.
Having a mediterranean diet also helps i’ve heard from friends and getting to bed well before 10 pm then rising before 7am. these are the tips i gleaned from a book a bought in america, but don’t have to hand whilst writing this reply. I do agree with taking magnesium but ensure you follow the 2:1 ratio ie 2 parts Calcium to 1 part Magnesium, as they work together. Forget HRT treatment go for natural. I had a friend that tried and swore by Black Kohash, Probable best you try natural first soya and mediterranean diet. Take Care, Love and hugs Moonsox
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Great , thank you , hoping I don’t need it 
The current tablets seem to be okay .
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Ive been on tamoxifen for nearly 4 years…helish…my periods stopped, ive now been put on another pill anastrozole as my consultant said i’m obviously in the menopause… ive been on these since June & over the weekend ive had slight bleeding down below(after 4 years of nothing)… I know tamoxifen can bring on the menopause early & also stop periods all together - been GP today - had inspection… she said cervix looks ok but refering me to gynacoligist for further checks… sorry to ramble - heres my point/ question… should i be on the anastrozole if im not infact going through the menopause - surley my consultant would check ??? im now waiting for breast unit to call me back to discuss!!!