It’s not very often that you are presented with pertinent information about a drug medication such as Tamoxifen, a truly amazing and effective treatment for treating breast cancer. While treatment with tamoxifen can be a protracted affair of from 5 to 10 years duration the treatment has been hailed as one of the most successful breast cancer treatments available and for good reason as you’ll find out from this article.
A brief overview of breast cancer
It’s always a good idea to know the basics of what you are dealing with so it’s wise to have some basic knowledge and understanding about breast cancer.
Essentially, breast cancer can be defined as a disease that has an impact on both physical and mental impacts that can show the following symptoms:
- a thickening of your breast tissue or a lump in your breast
- a strange discharge of blood from the nipples
- inverted new nipples
- changes of skin around or on your breast
- changes in shape or size of your breast.
Basically, the appearance of these symptoms means that you are likely suffering from breast cancer.
This means that cancer cells in your body are happily living off the female hormones estrogen and progesterone and are growing is numbers while they deplete the tissues of your breast.
Negative impacts of breast cancer on women
Breast cancer, especially in women, can play havoc to a woman’s ability in naturally using her breasts for the nurturing of her child through breastfeeding.
As a woman you may also feel the strain of being deprived of enjoying the normal activities in life due to the pain and pressure from the cancerous growth in her breast.
She may often feel depressed, anxious and worried about your condition which may lead to other side effects such as depression, anxiety, irritability and outbursts.
But all is not lost because there’s an effective treatment available for your condition which you can be confident of.
Tamoxifen to the rescue
Basically, tamoxifen is a hormonal treatment for breast cancer that’s found in both women and men which has become a highly efficacious treatment which has successfully treated millions of patients over time.
The cancerous breast tissues are also called hormone receptor positive which are sometimes called ER positive which means that the female hormones are attaching themselves successfully to the cancer cells which feed on them, allowing the cells to grow, split and self-replicate and grow in numbers.
In the process of growing, cancer cells destroy breast tissue until tamoxifen arrives with in a counter attack.
What tamoxifen does is it locks onto the estrogen receptors and systematically block the ability of estrogen to trigger cancer cells to divide and grow.
This is the success story of tamoxifen once it has been ingested into the body in its pill for through the mouth.
How tamoxifen is taken
Tamoxifen can be taken as a tablet or in a liquid form.
However, the taking of the tablets must conform strictly to the instructions your doctor of pharmacist have prescribed for you.
You should take the exact dose prescribed, not more or less.
You should talk to your doctor or pharmacist if you before you take action in stopping your cancer treatment.
When to take tamoxifen
When you are taking this drug medication, you should do so daily at the same time each day.
The normal duration of treatment for people suffering from breast cancer is usually 5 years of taking tamoxifen.
In some situations, the treatment may continue for another 5 years reaching a total of 10 years of taking tamoxifen perhaps for other forms of cancerous growths.
THE good news is that for preventing breast cancer from growing or recurring, you should only need to take tamoxifen for 5 years.
Tests that you need to take
During treatment of your breast cancer, you may need to undergo some blood tests so you are continually aware of your hormone levels.
Impacts of side effects
In addition to knowing the side effects that can be caused by taking tamoxifen, it’s also very important that you know the impacts that the side effects can have on your specific and overall health condition.
While there are numerous types of side effects that can be caused by taking tamoxifen, it’s not likely that you will experience all of them, but it’s possible that you may experience some of them at the same time.
The severity and the incidence of the side effects will be different for each person as they may also depend on other medications you are taking.
For instance, if you are taking other drugs or radiotherapy, it’s most probable that the side effects that you experience may be exacerbated.
Contacting your health support team
It’s important for you to know the members of your health support team in case you need them when your experience an emergency situation.
Normally, you’ll need to have access to your doctor, nurse or pharmacist for your healthcare needs as they are the people with whom you should have contact in case of emergencies.
They are responsible (in consort with one another or individually), for discussing all the side effects that you might face.
They will also be responsible for monitoring your condition closely for the duration of your treatment especially during your appointments.
You should contact them if:
- you are experiencing severe side effects
- your side effects are not improving
- your side effects are actually worsening
You should note that early treatment is an effective way of treating side effects and you should also be aware that when signs of infection start to show accompanied by a temperature of more than 37.5°C or below 36°C, it’s time to call your health support team members.
Takeaway
It’s very natural to get a boost to your confidence and you may well get a feeling of elation when are provided with very important information that may help you overcome your breast cancer problem. Having breast cancer during your life especially during your menopausal stage tends to drag you down further in your isolated situation. You should take courage now that you know your condition can be tamed and healed for good.