Aromatase Inhibitors: Did you decide to go on them or not?

The Oncologist has tried me on all 3 hormone suppressant therapies - Tamoxofen, femera and Arimidex. Each one for me has had severe side effects, which include depression( suicidal thoughts) madness (crazy thoughts), severe bone and joint pain in legs, no sleep or nightmares. My next appointment is in a couple of weeks so I don’t know what he’s gonna try next. I just know I can’t take those tablets. Any herbal stuff out there that works?

Geronimo- the oncologists usually try the 3 AIs- Femura, anestrole and arimidex. Are you sure you tried Tomoxifen ? Tomoxifen does not have joint pain as a side effect.

Tamoxifen is the one I had suicidal thoughts and severe joint pain

I am so surprised to hear that. Tomoxifen is the first one without joint pain. Hot flashes yes. What does your oncocytpe and mammoprint test results show in terms of reocurrence risk?

@geronimo1 I had terrible reactions to arimidex. After arguing Sith my oncologist, I now have a new oncologist and trying a new pill..exemestane. He is allowing me every third day to take for a month, then every other day for a month, and then every day.
If it doesn't work it doesn't HE said!
So far, small headache and small stomachs ache! No high blood pressure, no suicidal thoughts, and NO bone and joint pain!
Good luck!
We are all here for each other

My cancer has. 13 % recurrence off medication and 6 % if I stay on the meds . 87 % chance of not having a reoccurrence is how I see it . It was not worth the quality of life I had on them . I also already have heart condition so I decided to go off them
In December . I am doing yoga a couple times a week and other exercise to get strength back . I have or had stage 2 ILC ,

cancersucks - Sorry if I asked this before, did you try tamoxifen?

Good morning! I appreciate this forum!
I'm starting Femara (letrozole) after dozens of hours of researching AI's. I was trying to understand if taking an AI is worth the side effects for someone with stage/grade 1 invasive ductal carcinoma. I mostly read scholarly articles on the US National Institutes of Health website to better understand each drug's safety and efficacy. But I could not find research showing their effectiveness vs not taking them (placebo). This is because AI's are not typically compared to a placebo, but are compared to Tamoxifen. I'm continuing to look and appreciate if anyone finds a scientific study comparing the effectiveness of taking an AI vs. placebo.

The most useful info I found regarding side effects was from a pharmacist who provided the FDA website with the manufacturers product information. Here are the links to the pdf's. I printed each of these (28-38 pages) and compared each of the drugs and categories side by side.
Arimidex (anastrozole), non-steroid: https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/drugsatfda_docs/label/2011/020541s026lbl.pdf
Aromasin (exemestane), steroid: https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/drugsatfda_docs/label/2011/020753s009s011s012lbl.pdf
Femara (letrozole), non-steroid: https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/drugsatfda_docs/label/2014/020726s027lbl.pdf
Hope this helps.

@lindalm - can you share the similiar link for Tamoxifen?

Sorry, I tried but for some reason, was not able to pull up Tamoxifen's info.
Here is the website to search further: https://labels.fda.gov

Here are some other interesting websites:
US National Library of Medicine: https://dailymed.nlm.nih.gov/dailymed/index.cfm
National Institute of Health: https://www.nih.gov/
Clinical trials: https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/
Semantic Scholar: https://www.semanticscholar.org/