ER-Positive Tumors and Hormone Therapy I recently started taking Arimidex. At first, everything was fine. But then I started having bad joint and bone pain. Is this common? Joint and bone pain are two of the most common side effects of anastrozole (brand name Arimidex) and the other aromatase inhibitors.
There are two questions for you to consider:
Do you really need hormone therapy? Many times doctors automatically put women on hormone therapy after a diagnosis of ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) or invasive cancer without evaluating what the actual benefit might be. The benefits are directly related to your risk of recurrence. In DCIS and Stage I cancer, the benefits of hormone therapy often don't outweigh the risks. You might want to use our Decision Tool to learn more about your risks.
The Decision Tool, called Adjuvant!, was designed to help health professionals and patients with early breast cancer discuss the risks and benefits of chemotherapy or hormone therapy or both in the adjuvant (after surgery) setting. You should ask your doctor to input information about your diagnosis into the Adjuvant! program to see exactly what benefit you can expect from hormone therapy.
Do you really need an aromatase inhibitor? If you do need to take hormone therapy, there is no reason that you should have to take Arimidex and suffer from bone and joint pain. Tamoxifen remains an excellent choice for hormone therapy, unless you are HER2-positive. If you determine you do need hormone therapy, you should discuss with your oncologist the option of switching to tamoxifen, or switching back, if you were already on it.
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