Noun:

A hormone therapy drug to treat breast cancer in women and men.

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Tamoxifen is a hormonal therapy medication, a type of selective estrogen receptor modulator (SERM), used to treat and prevent breast cancer in both men and women. It works by blocking the effects of estrogen on breast cancer cells, which can help slow their growth or prevent them from developing.

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You might be prescribed Tamoxifen after the end of your cancer treatment, if the type of cancer you had was hormone receptive.

 

Obviously, a side effect of Tamoxifen is bloody weight gain!  And as it is a hormone therapy, it can unbalance you a bit and turn you into a bit of a hormone charged emotional wreck.

 

When I was diagnosed with The Cancer, I was pre-menopause.  My menopause was induced by chemo.  Apparently, Tamoxifen is the most effective hormone blocker for pre-menopausal women.

 

After about 3 or 4 years, my oncologist decided that I was probably now post-menopause (difficult to tell whilst on hormone treatment….) so changed me onto Letrazole.  Now, that really did turn me into some kind of mad woman for a little while. 

 

It didn’t help that it was during lockdown, the other half was working away, and I worked from home, with lots of long periods on my own.  I remember him coming back one Friday after a week on the tools, quite knackered, and tentatively suggested that he might pop down the pub for an hour. 

 

Now usually, I would look at this as an opportunity to have a bit of “me” time.  Go for a walk, read a book, chill.  But on this particular occasion, my Letrazole fueled brain thought this suggestion was totally unacceptable, and I flew at him and took a small chunk out of his chest with my fingernails.  Luckily, he’s bigger and stronger than me, and just held my wrists so I couldn’t continue to do a Freddy Kruger on him.

 

Honestly, for a few minutes I actually lost my mind!

It did settle down after about 3 or 4 months (obviously with MORE EFFIN WEIGHT GAIN) and things got down to more of a level setting.  I don’t know if other people have experienced this with hormone blockers, but it was a very strange time.