MedWorm provides a medical RSS filtering service. Over 6000 RSS medical sources are combined and output via different filters. This feed contains the latest medical blog items that have been tagged with 'arimidex'. Sat, 03 Sep 2011 02:49:18 +0100 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3730043&cid=t_115331_136_f&fid=36032&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.everydayhealth.com%2Fblog%2Flife-with-breast-cancer%2Fpharmacists-can-help-in-the-battle-against-breast-cancer%2F One great source of support for me during and after breast cancer was my pharmacy. I had a wonderful community pharmacy with really helpful pharmacists and assistants. Whenever I showed up with a new prescription, the pharmacist would take the time to answer my questions and review the information about the medication. Since early this year I have been wrestling with taking Femera. I wrote about it in a blog after my oncologist prescribed it in January. I was supposed to start taking it right after I finished taking tamoxifen in March. Well, as much as I appreciate the encouragement I received from readers and the continued nagging from my doctor, here I am still trying to decide if I should take it. I haven’t gone in to talk to my regular pharmacist yet because if I am not prepared to s... Life with Breast Cancer blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3730043 Tue, 06 Jul 2010 17:54:57 +0100 3730043 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3395334&cid=t_115331_136_f&fid=36032&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.everydayhealth.com%2Fblog%2Flife-with-breast-cancer%2Fhealth-care-reform-a-breast-cancer-victory%2F I am sitting in my family room this Sunday evening listening to the final debate in the House of Representatives over health care reform. It is overwhelming to think that finally there will be a solution to the huge lack of accessible health care for millions of Americans. I am relieved to know that finally in America health care will be a right, and not a privilege. This is an important step in the quest for a cure for breast cancer. No matter what treatment researchers find, it won’t be a cure unless all women have access to it. Those of us that have fought and won our battle with breast cancer won’t be denied insurance for having a pre-existing condition. More women will survive breast cancer because they have screening at a critical early time; Ensuring that all women in America ca... Life with Breast Cancer blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3395334 Mon, 22 Mar 2010 18:48:42 +0100 3395334 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3223463&cid=t_115331_136_f&fid=36032&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.everydayhealth.com%2Fblog%2Flife-with-breast-cancer%2Ftaking-a-new-medication-to-reduce-breast-cancer-risk%2F The new prescription for Femera is pinned to my fridge with a magnet. I’ve put it there so I won’t forget about filling it at the end of the month and guess what? It’s the end of the month. I had such a bad experience with Arimidex that you can hardly blame me for not being more enthusiastic about starting this new one. I didn’t mind tamoxifen at all, but my doctor decided that I am done with it. Studies show that there is no increase in benefit from taking tamoxifen for more than five years. Now my oncologist insists that following with five years of Femera will provide the greatest risk reduction for cancer returning. I always said that if it came down to it that I would choose to take medication rather than have cancer. I guess it helps to have a bottom line, but... Life with Breast Cancer blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3223463 Fri, 29 Jan 2010 23:32:19 +0100 3223463 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3189351&cid=t_115331_136_f&fid=36032&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.everydayhealth.com%2Fblog%2Flife-with-breast-cancer%2Fcancer-patients-need-treatment-but-that-doesnt-mean-we-trust-it%2F There is no way to express the horror I feel over the devastation and human suffering caused by the earthquake in Haiti. It is beyond understanding how these people are coping in the midst of this. I watched the news with real heartbreak as some Haitians refused to eat rations provided off of trucks. One individual took the package and started telling everyone not to eat it as the date said it was expired. People started rejecting the packaged food and throwing it on the ground as the truck drove off. Others chased after the truck begging them to provide more. As friends and family expressed their dismay at this scene, I began to comprehend. Imagine people desperate for food receiving something as foreign to them as a small package of nutrition. There could have been mistrust. Remember, Ha... Life with Breast Cancer blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3189351 Tue, 19 Jan 2010 18:39:02 +0100 3189351 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3149274&cid=t_115331_136_f&fid=36032&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.everydayhealth.com%2Fblog%2Flife-with-breast-cancer%2Fback-to-the-front-lines-in-the-battle-against-breast-cancer%2F I’m at four month visits with my oncologist now. After five years of trotting off to the same office, I still look forward to visiting my old support network that saw me through chemotherapy. It appears though that after five years, the old support staff has changed. The oncology nurses that hooked me up to the drip bags have all moved on to other jobs and I didn’t recognize anyone in the chemo clinic this visit. Maybe that’s a good thing. Nothing to link me to the chemo period. This visit I met with my doctor’s physician assistant. She checked me out and told me everything looked good, gave me my prescription for a chest x-ray and sent me to the chemo clinic for a blood sample. Before she finished though she advised me that I was finishing with Tamoxifen this month... Life with Breast Cancer blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3149274 Wed, 06 Jan 2010 19:37:25 +0100 3149274 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3142831&cid=t_115331_150_f&fid=35777&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FPharmalot%2F%7E3%2FYDsWID7KjMQ%2F In an attempt to dissect the profitability of big drugs - and gauge their contribution to a drugmaker’s overall profit and loss - Sanford Bernstein analyst Tim Anderson recently crunched some numbers showing, among other things, that roughly 30 of the 52 drugs he examined have pretax margins that are 70 percent or higher. This compares to the average drug company pretax margin of about 32 percent. His point: a big drug may only account for 10 percent of a company’s total sales, but its contribution to pretax profits could be twice as large. And as patent cliffs loom, this is important. Here are the drugs offering the biggest payback: 1 - Effexor (Pfizer) 87 percent 2 - Arimidex (AstraZeneca) 85 percent 3 - Femara (Novartis) 84 percent 4 - Detrol (Pfizer) 84 percent 5 - Gemzar ... Pharmalot blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3142831 Tue, 05 Jan 2010 14:44:08 +0100 3142831 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2442582&cid=t_115331_136_f&fid=36032&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.everydayhealth.com%2Fblog%2Flife-with-breast-cancer%2Freactions-to-cancer-and-focusing-on-a-cure%2F Cancer grows in healthy bodies. That is why it sometimes takes a long time before it is found. Cancer cells can be hiding and waiting to blossom and we don’t even know it. I didn’t smoke or drink and I got plenty of sleep and tried to eat healthy. I buckled my seat belt when I was in a car as a passenger or driver and took vitamins. Cancer had no right choosing my body.  Some of us feel that way and others berate themselves for not being more mindful of how they were treating their bodies. Either way, cancer is like a terrorist working its insidious devious plan while we go about our lives unaware. We know that keeping our weight down helps reduce the risk for breast cancer. We know that eating less meat and avoiding alcohol also helps reduce our risk. Outside of that, we don’t know... Life with Breast Cancer blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2442582 Wed, 20 May 2009 18:53:09 +0100 2442582 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2027971&cid=t_115331_136_f&fid=36032&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.healthtalk.com%2Fbreast-cancer%2Flife-with-breast-cancer%2Fanger-over-health-insurance-companies-dictatorship%2F I have taken a break from Tamoxifen. I don’t have any adverse symptoms with Tamoxifen like I did with Arimidex. This is why I stopped taking it and asked my doctor to put me back on Tamoxifen. Lately I have been getting a pain in my lower leg, which may be just a muscle issue, but because one of the most severe side effects of Tamoxifen can be a blood clot, I stopped the drug until I see my doctor next week. I have become completely over cautious - with reason - since the breast cancer diagnosis. This isn’t my issue today though. I was thinking about all this because I need to refill the Tamoxifen for this month. My insurance company has just decreed that all long-term prescriptions must be filled by mail. They plan to institute this by increasing the co-pay of repeats after 3 ... Life with Breast Cancer blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2027971 Mon, 08 Dec 2008 18:34:56 +0100 2027971 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1734327&cid=t_115331_136_f&fid=36032&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.healthtalk.com%2Fbreast-cancer%2Flife-with-breast-cancer%2Fhormonal-treatment-options-after-tamoxifen%2F The blog posts that I wrote last year on Arimidex (anastrozole) and aromatase inhibitors are still garnering a lot of comments and readership. It seems that many women are suffering from the painful and sometimes debilitating side effects from these hormonal drugs. I stopped taking Arimidex in the fall of 2006 and returned to taking tamoxifen, which causes me no ill effects. I am now revisiting the whole hormonal treatment option. My doctor determined that I should spend one more year on tamoxifen. I then have the option to take additional years of an aromatase inhibitor like Arimidex or Femara. I can put off thinking about it for the year obviously, but then I think about flying solo (meaning sans drugs to combat cancer) and I have to consider the aromotase inhibitor as an option. Studies... Life with Breast Cancer blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1734327 Tue, 26 Aug 2008 16:21:34 +0100 1734327 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1727798&cid=t_115331_136_f&fid=37846&url=http%3A%2F%2Fhealthinfoispower.wordpress.com%2F2008%2F08%2F18%2Fworking-smarter-not-harder-anti-estrogen-therapy-to-battle-recurrent-ovarian-cancer%2F The Gynecologic Oncology department of the University of Texas, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center took a page out of the breast cancer treatment “playbook,” and conducted a single institution Phase II clinical trial using letrozole (Femara®) to treat recurrent, platinum and taxane resistant, high-grade cancer of the ovary and peritoneum. …The trial investigators concluded that 26% [...] (Source: Libby's H*O*P*E*) Libby's H*O*P*E* blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1727798 Tue, 19 Aug 2008 03:28:31 +0100 1727798 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1606283&cid=t_115331_136_f&fid=36032&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.healthtalk.com%2Fbreast-cancer%2Flife-with-breast-cancer%2Fenjoying-the-sun-as-a-cancer-survivor%2F Michigan has been getting more than normal rain this summer. When it is sunny, it is hard to resist getting outside to bathe in it. Since I have been in my 20s I have been protective of my skin by using sunscreen daily, even in the winter when I am going to be outside. Because of all of the great news that has accompanied vitamin D, I have actually purposely exposed my skin to the sun this year since the sun is the best source of vitamin D. I still protect my face (for vanity reasons mostly), and I really only expose my skin for maybe five minutes at a time. As breast cancer survivors, we need to avoid other cancers and skin cancer is one we really need to be vigilant about. For safety reasons, I really do limit my sun exposure. I also take a vitamin D supplement. We now know that vitamin ... Life with Breast Cancer blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1606283 Thu, 10 Jul 2008 19:36:21 +0100 1606283 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1509261&cid=t_115331_136_f&fid=36032&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.healthtalk.com%2Fbreast-cancer%2Flife-with-breast-cancer%2Fusing-weight-watchers-to-fight-breast-cancer%2F The last time I did the Weight Watcher’s program was after the genetics oncologist told me that in order to battle cancer, I needed to lose a lot of weight. I did the Weight Watcher’s core plan and ended up losing 20 pounds by the time I went for DIEP flap breast cancer surgery. The core program allows you to eat as much of the listed foods as you need to not feel hungry. I never felt hungry on the program and all of the food included is healthy and falls in line with recommendations for reducing cancer risk because of low fat, high nutrition content. Well, I have lamented how the weight came back after surgery when I spent six months in pain on Arimidex and a bunch of other excuses I could name. Truly I was also diet fatigued, I just couldn’t get the momentum going again... Life with Breast Cancer blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1509261 Wed, 11 Jun 2008 21:45:08 +0100 1509261 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1482288&cid=t_115331_150_f&fid=35777&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FPharmalot%2F%7E3%2F302162466%2F In a trial, just two annual injections of Zometa cut by 35 percent the risk that breast tumors would return in a study of young women. Currently, the Novartis drug is used to treat cancer that spread to the bone and, in some cases, osteoporosis. In the study of 1,803 patients, about 6 percent of women getting Zometa suffered a relapse within five years, compared with 9 percent who didn’t receive the drug, according to data presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting in Chicago, Bloomberg News writes. The study, which funded in part by Novartis, is the first to show the medication can slow cancer in addition to protecting bones. Women getting the drug had fewer problems with all types of recurrences, including local and distant disease, tumors in the opposite brea... Pharmalot blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1482288 Sun, 01 Jun 2008 04:12:33 +0100 1482288 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=961847&cid=t_115331_136_f&fid=36032&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.healthtalk.com%2Fbreast-cancer%2Flife-with-breast-cancer%2Fan-innovative-way-to-wear-a-ribbon-for-breast-cancer-awareness%2F A pink ribbon has been gracing my lapel this month - not just an enamel pink ribbon pin, but a big not easy to miss pink ribbon. It is such a great idea, I wanted to share it with you. Not satisfied with the small regular emblem I wear everyday to bring attention to breast cancer, I decided for October, the Breast Cancer Awareness Month that I needed to jazzy it up a bit. I went to the fabric store and purchased a yard of 1-¼ inch grosgrain pink ribbon. I ended up using 16 inches of it, folding it around to resemble the usual shape of the breast cancer awareness ribbon and pinning it to my lapel with a small brooch. It looks terrific! It did exactly what I wanted; it got people commenting and talking to me. When it doesn’t match exactly what I am wearing, I pin it to my purse. I haven�... Life with Breast Cancer blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=961847 Thu, 18 Oct 2007 18:45:53 +0100 961847 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=906330&cid=t_115331_136_f&fid=36032&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.healthtalk.com%2Fbreast-cancer%2Flife-with-breast-cancer%2Fhot-flashes-and-fried-food%2F Hot flashes have not been a major problem for me during treatment for my breast cancer or after removal of my ovaries. Having said that, I have been experiencing an increase in incidence and intensity of hot flashes over the last couple of days. I can actually attribute this to eating fried fatty foods. I rarely if ever eat anything fried, so the fact that I have enjoyed usually outlawed fried foods over the past couple of days is very revealing. In addition to the fried foods, I have not eaten my usual amount of vegetables, but, I have skipped servings of vegetables here and there before without a change in symptoms. Therefore, I can 100% confidently tell you that fried foods cause an increase in hot flash activity for me. OK, I’ll tell you what I ate – french fries and buffalo wings,... Life with Breast Cancer blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=906330 Wed, 26 Sep 2007 20:53:58 +0100 906330 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=885539&cid=t_115331_136_f&fid=36032&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.healthtalk.com%2Fbreast-cancer%2Flife-with-breast-cancer%2Fgetting-to-know-your-cancer-drugs%2F It has been about a year since I stopped taking Arimidex, an aromatase inhibitor. The side effects I experienced are long gone. Gone are the horrendous aches and pains I had in my joints and bones. When I finally made the decision to stop, it had gotten to the point where it hurt to walk and even get up in the morning. For me the decision wasn’t difficult. As I have told you before, I insisted my oncologist put me back on Tamoxifen, which is still a viable drug in reducing cancer risk. For some of you the decision to stop an armoatase inhibitor isn’t so easy; the cancer may be more advanced or the fear of the return of cancer is overwhelming. There is still no counter evidence to suggest other than the effectiveness of aromatase inhibitors like Arimidex (anastrozole) and Femara (letroz... Life with Breast Cancer blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=885539 Thu, 20 Sep 2007 00:27:34 +0100 885539 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=851097&cid=t_115331_136_f&fid=36032&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.healthtalk.com%2Fbreast-cancer%2Flife-with-breast-cancer%2Fa-support-program-for-users-of-arimidex%2F I haven’t received a specific response to my concerns from the pharmaceutical companies regarding aromatase inhibitors and our comments about side effects. What I have received is information about a new program being offered to users of Arimidex. The makers of Arimidex have created a free program for the users of Armidex. It is called “In Your Corner” It includes advice from healthcare experts on treatment, fitness, nutrition and help for dealing with side effects. It also covers topics that coordinate with your treatment. AstraZeneca has designed this program as a support and resource for the increasing number of women on the drug. “In Your Corner” is an interesting label for this program, especially coming from the makers of the drug. For many of us the experience with the dru... Life with Breast Cancer blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=851097 Sat, 08 Sep 2007 00:01:12 +0100 851097