Recovery time after Anastrozole/aromatase inhibitors

Posted by annedenner @annedenner, Sep 20, 2025

Greetings Everyone,
I took Anastrozole for one year. I had severe arch/foot and leg pain that did not improve. I’ve been off the AI four months with slight improvement in these symptoms. Can anyone share their “recovery” experiences from AIs. What side effects did you have, did side effects resolve and if so how long did it take? Thank you!

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Profile picture for megunique @megunique

This has been so helpful to read chats and experiences. I was diagnosed at 69 and did 5 years on anastrazole. I am 1 month off the medication. I asked a lot of questions over those 5 years and learned a lot if this helps anyone. Yes symptoms can occur at any point and that is why my oncologist would ask at every appointment if any new side effects appeared. It is because this medication has somewhat of a cumulative effect. The longer you block estrogen the more it can impact you. I had initial muscles cramps but they went away. I think largely because I pushed myself to exercise and strength training. I had joint stiffness but thought it was from lifting weights. Now that I am off anastrazole for 1 month the stiffness is reduced. But I am far from full recovery. My most serious side effect was lack of sleep no matter what sleep aids I tried. I am slowly sleeping better but still have a lot of fatigue. I have a higher creatinine on the drug and while I maintained my weight ok for 4.5 years the last 5 months I gained weight despite a good diet, exercise and barely eating candy. The metabolic impact is frustrating and makes no sense to me.
I am told now that it can take 3-9 months for your body to recover. So I am trying to be grateful research and these meds have improved survival rates so significantly and that i am alive. I think in general not enough information is given about how women recover from hormone blocker. I could have prepared better mentally.

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@megunique
I was on it for the 5 years, and have now been off a little over 2 months.. some of the milder side effects have improved, but my joint and muscle pain has not.. I don’t even see an improvement yet. I was getting a little discouraged until I saw your post. If you’ve heard it can take 3-9 months, I still have some hope that it will get better.. as of now, I haven’t even seen an improvement..

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I took it for 7 months. The worst side effects were cataracts, detached retina and the most annoying is carpal tunnel.
Has anyone had these side effects? Do they ever get better?

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