Concerned about the side effects of anastrozole

Chamisa -- Very interesting. My NP swore by L-Glutamine for the taxol-induced neuropathy (I took 20g a day). My oncologist said nothing would help. It's been 7 months since my last infusion, and the neuropathy (especially the burning) is worse than ever and climbing up my legs and arms. I've always taken some ALA, but I doubt it was helpful. I'm very discouraged by the nerve damage. Had I known this would happen, I doubt that I would have gone through with the chemo 🙁

I intended to reply to your question directly but somehow it ended up being a whole new post! 🙂

Elizm— I took 600 mg divided into 300 mg at two meals daily. I’ll never know if it really helped or not, because I started having symptoms early into the taxol portion of my treatment and my doctor advised me to take it... so I don’t know how bad my neuropathy would have been without it. (The chemo nurses also had me keep my hands and toes iced down during infusions...never will know for sure if that actually helped or not either.) The doc told me to take 300-600 mg daily but recommended I take the larger dose. After two years I still have significant numbness/tingling in my fingers and ball/toes of one foot. Interestingly about three months ago I realized that my other foot had improved so much it is almost back to “normal”! Have no idea why just one foot is better. For my hair I was taking 5000 mcg of Biotin daily.

Chamisa: Do you recall how much ALA you took? Do you think it helped with the neuropathy?

Elizm, I did take biotin and just recently stopped, I felt like after two years that was enough. I do think it probably helped. My hair was extremely slow to start its regrowth and I think the biotin did help “encourage” it. (I also have neuropathy from the chemo, and my med onc told me to take ALA — alpha lipoid acid. Same thing, after two years I decided I was done.) But to anybody else reading this, I agree with what you said about the biotin. I actually had forgotten about it.

Chamisa -- At the encouragement of my nurse practitioner in the oncologist's office, I started taking 50mg (25mg twice a day) of Biotin. Yes, it is a large amount, but it has done wonders for my hair. It's a thought....

I underwent chemo, lost my hair, had a bilateral mastectomy and finally radiation. I am two years and one month out from completion of chemo, and two years out from surgery. In three months I will have taken anastrozole for two years. The side effects are quite tolerable... still get hot flashes some, my osteopenia is slowly worsening, and when my hair did finally grow back, it was/is very thin. I used to have fine but thick hair. After two years I have accepted that my lack of estrogen gives me this hair and so I have given up trying to grow it out and have just settled on a pixie cut. At least I have hair! My onc has pushed me to take Prolia for my bones but I have a history of dental problems and I’m not willing to take the risk of future jaw necrosis, which is a rare but still possible side effect. I am now seeing a mineral metabolism specialist to try to balance my calcium etc intake— I was taking a lot of calcium to offset the AI’s effect on my bones and developed kidney stones! Oh, another side effect is that after about three months of taking anastrozole, I developed “old lady skin”— like I used to associate with my grandmothers. It would have happened eventually; I’m 63 now. But all in all I’m in pretty good shape. 🙂

I was diagnosed 2 1/2 years ago. My cancer did not spread to my lymph nodes so it was determined that only radiation was needed. I started on Arimidex and then took a second similar RX , but had joint pain in my hand and ankle. I am now on Letrozole and doing very well. I still have ankle pain and some anxiety. But not too bad. Will have a bone density test this fall.

Welcome to Connect, @oilermama. I see that this is your first post. We look forward to getting to know you. Would you mind telling us a bit about yourself. When were you diagnosed with breast cancer? How are you doing today?

No hair "loss" but some thinning which I think comes with my age. I got a shorter cut designed to make my hair look thicker and it does! It never came out in clumps, just simply noticed it was thinner than before....Probably only noticeable to me.