Hi there,
My question is about the impact of tamoxifen and the menopause.
I had Breast Cancer 7 years ago, which was treated by having mastectomy and hormone therapy. I was 48 and so I suppose I verging on perimenopausal then, although I was still having normal periods.
The effects of tamoxifen were fairly brutal; my periods stopped within the first year and I had a range of very difficult menopausal symptoms, most of which I am still dealing with today. I stopped taking tamoxifen 2 years ago, but one year ago I had a post- menopausal bleed, which put me on the gynae cancer two week pathway, but scans hysteroscopy and a biopsy found no evidence of cancer, thankfully.
I had another bleed this summer and went through more invasive tests because of evidence of thickening in the womb. Again, thankfully the results showed nothing sinister and I was discharged.
Everything was fine until last month when I had more bleeding but this time it was a full on period with other more familiar symptoms leading up to it (e.g., sore nipple, spots, feeling more emotional etc). Then lo and behold, the same thing has happened again a month later (now!)
So, I can only conclude that I’m not actually post menopausal after all and that after 5 years of being under hormone suppression, my reproductive system has woken up and decided it’s not quite finished yet!
I know periods can return at the end of hormone treatment, but what seems rather strange is:
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It’s taken 2 years for this to happen.
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I’m now 56, so thought I would naturally be post menopausal by now (even if I hadn’t had any hormone treatment.)
I’m wondering if this is unusual, or more common than I might think? Has anyone had a similar experience?
My family are worried and think I should go to my GP, but I don’t want to waste their time because:
a) although it’s annoying, I don’t think anything is ‘wrong’ because I’ve been checked out recently. Is that a fair assumption?
b) to be honest, I’m not convinced my GP I’ll be able to shed much light on the situation – I think this is a most specialised query which Breast Care Nurses more likely to be knowledgeable about.
So having given all that context and background information, my questions are:
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Is this resumption of my periods ‘par for the course’ given my circumstances and age?
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Could this be because while hormonally suppressed on tamoxifen, my reproductive system was effectively ‘frozen’, with the body clock paused, but has now restarted, if that makes sense? Not sure if it works like that?
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Does this mean that I should expect to go through another menopause, maybe in a couple of years time when my ovaries have run out of steam?
Any advice would be much appreciated, thank you!