I have been taking arimidex for 3 years. Is it ok to take aromasin now?

Why change now ? Depending on how old you are, I wonder if you need to take anymore anything.

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I had my first estrogen positive intra-ductal, 1/2 centimeterm, no lymph node involvement breast cancer 16 years ago, soon after menopause. Starting with Tamoxifen, I was switched from drug to drug because of impossible to live with side effects. Finally, being a healthy person otherwise, I quit taking all of it (after perhaps 11 months) and made a good effort at exercise and eating properly, and keeping the weight down. 16 years later, in my mid 70s, I had another small breast cancer on the other breast, unrelated, but also estrogen receptor positive. I was put on Arimidex. I go to France for a couple of months every year to hike the hills and explore with my son. This drug made that impossible, due to awful leg cramps, and serious loss of sleep due to them. So I stopped taking it altogether. A year later, last year, on my yearly checkup, all looking fine, my oncologist talked me into taking Aromasin, saying, some ladies had had better luck with side-effects. I searched the net and found a blog of similar ladies -- the side-effects were almost 100 % of the ladies, and absolutely debilitatin. I have been on Aromasin for 6 weeks, but am stopping it for 2 months now, for my trip. The only side effects I have had so far, are slight weight gain (all in the stomache, which I don't like) and waking up 5-6 times a night just feeling restless, but enough to ruin many days, general restlessness and agitation, and confusion, but all of those things may be the aging process, except that they came on all of a sudden and when I skipped the drug to go on a trip over Christmas, they went away.

Depending on your age --- I really question these drugs in general, if you do get regular checkups. My first go-round, when I stopped first Tamoxifen, then 2 other drugs, my very fine oncologist, from Nat. Cancer Inst, suggested i come for checkups every 3 months for a year, taking nothing. Then it changed to every 6 months, then a year, which lasted, symptom free for 16 years.

My feeling is, the attitude of doctors is to cure the illness, of course. ANy and all symptoms are a price you pay for that. But over and over, I meet women whose lives were just over once they were on these hormonal receptor inhibiting drugs. I can say, I've not yet met a woman whose former life wasn't almost nullified by them.

L L from Raleigh and Atlanta