Any long-term success stories from those NOT taking hormone therapy?

To lj22,
I thought I'd chime in with my so far, so good cancer journey. In July 2020 at the age of 70, I was diagnosed with breast cancer - Stage 1, Grade 1, HR/PR+, Ki67 less than 10 and no lymph node involvement with clear margins after lumpectomy. I had 16 rounds of radiation. Our cancers were very similar. I also have osteopenia. My endocrinologist said to take whatever medicine was best for my cancer, and he would take care of my bones. He said that I would be needing medicine anyway because I was getting older and my osteopenia would progress to osteoporosis. I took anastrozole every other day for a month, every day for 7 weeks, and then stopped. I had severe side effects resulting a very poor quality of life. I decided not to try exemestane against the strong urging of my oncologist, who did not acknowledge the side effects that I reported, as being caused by anastrozole. About a month after stopping anastrozole the side effects had subsided. I walk every day and try to eat a good diet. My osteopenia has not progressed to osteopenia, as my endocrinologist had predicted. It has been nearly 5 years, since I stopped taking anastrozole. I feel well and am enjoying life.
There are some studies that are finding that the current treatment of early stage breast cancer may be overly aggressive in older women. We must each advocate for ourselves and listen to our bodies. It's true that many women tolerate these drugs well, but many do not. Inform yourself as much as you can. This forum is a very good resource for helping us learn about cancer. Thank you to all who post with your wise words and insight. I wish you all well.

@brightlight66
Even though I ate high calcium food (calcium supplements give me UTI) and took vit D, my Dexa still went down on hip femoral neck. Then I added vit K (low dose) to my supplements. This year my Dexa went up, highest is 9% on left femoral neck, and went down on lumbar spine. I figure that my exercise didn’t include lumbar spine strengthening. So I’m adding lumbar exercises to my routine (running, weightlifting, swimming) I read that vit K helps calcium absorption which makes a big difference in my case. I currently take exemestane which also cause osteoporosis. I understand that his is not a forum for bone density, but since we talk about osteoporosis I want to put in my two cents.

@myoga The article references is based on age and race where it's possibly beneficial but I found these numbers:
interesting from the study you posted:
"Among 18 808 women with breast cancer, 2926 (23.7%) of HMT users and 1802 (27.9%) of non-HMT users developed ADRD by the end of the follow-up period. A total of 5038 women (26.8%) died during the follow-up period (3262 [26.4%] in HMT vs 1776 [27.5%] in non-HMT."

If I'm reading this right are the non HMT numbers significantly lower?

@prc73
I think the study is about ADRD, and not about effectiveness of hormone therapy which would have to delve into stages, cancer types. Am I missing something here? Thanks.

@myoga oh just those numbers seem to show as if those who didn't take HT had better outcome

@prc73
You’re right. It does seem like that. I didn’t have chemo so I feel like AI is my next best option to prevent recurrence. Chemo seems to associate with long term survival though.

@myoga :

Thanks for sharing your valuable experience with great tips to help us! I am wondering whether it would be beneficial for us to eat more foods that are rich in vitamin K as the following link provided by cleveland clinic shows?
https://health.clevelandclinic.org/foods-high-in-vitamin-k
Thanks again for your help:)

Better journey ahead, my friends!

@lifetraveler
Thank you for the link! I didn’t know collard greens contain so much vit K. I definitely will include it in my diet.
I noticed the improvement in Dexa this year after adding K2 to my supplements. Low doses though, 1000IU of D3 and 45mcg of K2. The only one still decreases is the lumbar spine which I didn’t exercise to strengthen. So that’s all I’ll do: eat food high in calcium, exercise, and take D+K. I’m thinking of increase doses for D and K, maybe 2000IU+100mcg. I will report the results when I get my next Dexa which is around October.
I hope all is well with all of you, my friends. Glad to travel with you on this journey! Hugs.

@myoga Thank you for sharing. Although I hear everyone reacts differently to the hormone therapy, its good to know what can help if we begin to experience the same side effects.

@bloncape @1j22
Im going to chime in, too.
Ive written this before with this same question.
Aromatase inhibitors have a crippling effect on many users.
I switched to exemestane. It did not give me the crippling effect.
With that said:
If your breast cancer does NOT feed on progesterone, research yam cream and progesterone cream.
Dr. John Lee wrote an excellent book about 30 years ago.
Its a worthy resource.
He had his patients use progesterone cream in his medical practice and found it helped women who were estrogen dominant.
Many of his patients had their osteoporosis reversed.