Has anyone on Anastrozole had eye/sight problems?

There is a good article on M.D.Anderson site about 8 cancer treatment-related eye changes and how to manage. Certain cancer treatments can cause eye related side effects. You have to be so careful about what you decide upon and the side effects of each treatment. I have done a spread sheet of treatments and side effects and also used the Predict Breast Cancer site to look at statical outcomes. Each person will have different outcomes for stage, grade, node involvement and different types of cancer. Each of us has to look at what we want for our lives and own outcomes. Too many want to dictate without patient input. Your body, your choice.

Dry eye syndrome is associated with estrogen blockers which i have been on on 2008..first sign was i was inable to wear mu contact lenses..eyes too dry…then as years passed symtoms worsened ..eye doc and oncologist couldn’t seem to connect the two ..but research with my pharmacist revealed a % of women develop severe dry eye disease after or when using eatrogen blockers for ER+ breast cancer..i have been since one year almost wearing scleral lenses to lubricate my dry corneas and no longer need drops OR glasses when lenses are in ( 12 hr) DED causes sensitivity to light, snow, tearing and so on ..more common in women and age..still have DED but comforting to have solution while continuing estrogen blockers for
My now metastatic breast cancer…🙏

It did make my cataracts grow faster. I had cataract surgery right after the 5 year mark. Just be warned - a lot of drugs do this. AI drugs happen to be one of many.

@reflector75 Hi - like you I have been on Anastrozole for a while ( coming up to two years) and have for about three/ four months begun to notice the issues you describe,particularly the early day reading vision blurring. Some days this clears by mid morning but it is variable. I will be actively looking for research based stuff on this. In common with other commentators on this site I too feel that many clinicians are not versed in the side effects of these drugs.Whilst I of course acknowledge that professionals have high workloads and cannot ‘ know everything’ , given that these meds are so widely prescribed and for protracted timescales there seems to be a case here for the expansion of multi - disciplinary professional education / update on these issues to catch more clinicians in the awareness net.

I am 65 and have been taking Anastrozole for over 3 1/2 years. I just had cataract surgery a month ago. Was it Anastrozole or age? I will never know. I also had dental issues (crown) within months of starting Anastrozole. It seems like subtle changes in health are going to keep you guessing for the rest of your life.

I also have a lot of eye issues like I have seen described here, since my treatments began about 3 years ago. I had just had new glasses made up a few months prior to my diagnoses. I started having blurry vision only a couple of months after the treatment started. I thought it was odd because I had just corrected my eyes with the new glasses and was seeing great prior to treatment. Then I read through all the possible side effects and realized that permanent vision changes had been linked to at least one of the treatments and dry eyes to others. I also have very bad dry eye problems. I have to use an ointment in my eyes every night just to sleep or else they get so dry that the lids stick to my eyeballs. It's made even worse by having to keep a fan on me all night long, no matter the season, because of constant hot flashes. I just love how doctors not only don't tell you about most of the possible side effects but they act like they are so rare to happen. Obviously this is not the case, just look at this forum! They should be forced to learn about all of the possible effects of the drugs they are pushing on people. They should also have to monitor better the rate at which the different side effects pop up and report them to the drug companies that make them.

@coco46 yes I think the case for much better clinician / patient communication , and most importantly, candour needs to be made by patients and their support networks.

@coco46
Yes I had blurry and dry eye problems few months after starting anastrozole. Now I’m taking exemestane but the problems don’t go away. Have you considered using humidifier at night to help with dry eye ( in addition to dry eye oilment)? I don’t use the oilment. The eye drop works better for me.

This is all very interesting. I had to stop Anastrazole because of side effects so have been on exemestane for a little over a year. Not doing great on it but better than Anastrazole. I had cataract surgery done a little over a year ago (age, not related to these meds). Saw ophthalmologist for dilated exam on 12/02 and all was well. Oncologist on 12/9 wanted me to take a 1 month vacation from meds because of problems with bloodwork and side effects. On 12/11, I suffered vitreous detachment in right eye. Nothing they could do, didn’t see any flashes of light so just “something that happens”. But then on 12/23, had some problem in other eye. So I guess my problem/question is whether coming OFF the ai caused this. Going to call next week to see if that could be the case and will research in the meantime.

My drugs (Anastrozole & Exemestane) - made my cataracts grow faster. Just be aware.