I am on letrozole following a year of chemotherapy,surgery and radiotherapy to treat stage 3 breast cancer with positive lymph nodes. I started taking letrozole 5 months ago & I am aware of varying amounts of stiffness and pain throughout the day. My hands are painful on waking and sore to clench. I walk down the stairs one step at a time as knees & feet are stiff. However by the time I’ve had my morning coffee I am usually back to my usual self . Exercise was recommended to help with the joint stiffness, so I try to do some yoga daily and this does tend to help, I also cycle once a week and have joined the gym on a GP referral and follow an exercise programme that has been structured to help with the stiffness and joint pain.. During the day if I sit or stand for long periods I also become very stiff and feel like my body is old and doesn’t bend like it use to 6 months ago, even simple tasks like bending to pick something off the floor can be difficult since starting the hormone therapy, I also wake a couple of times overnight with pain that occasionally requires pain relief before I can get back off to sleep.
I call my all these symptoms my niggles as they come and go throughout the day, but they do get me down. I try not to dwell on them to my famiIy too much and Im doing my best to get back to the life I had before my cancer treatment, but I do feel like you, that I’m sometimes running on empty. I do try to focus on the benefits of the letrozole . I also gained a lot of weight during my treatment and I feel this doesn’t help matters either.
I will be going back to work in 4 weeks and just hope that I am able to do my job.
