Jaw pain as a side effect with Tamoxifen?

Hi Mike,  Assume your dentist or GP has ruled out TMJ (Temporomandibular Joint disorder) does it affect your ear(s) as well ?

Tamoxifen and other hormone inhibitor tablets are well know to cause bone / joint pain as a side effect so I can't see why a jawbone wouldn't be any different. 

Have you always had the same brand of tamoxifen or does it sometimes vary ? If you have always had the same brand it may be worth you asking your GP or pharmacy if you could try another brand for a month or two to see if it helps as sometimes dif makes do vary slightly and several of the ladies here have found a preference to one brand being better suited for them. 

There may be other members who have had a similar problem with Tamoxifen etc and jaw aches.

Hope this is of some help, George & Jackie

Hi Mike and welcome to the forum.

It is entirely possible that your aching jaw is down to Tamoxifen, but equally it could be the stress.  Do you have any other joint pain?  It may be that being a guy, the lack of oestrogen in your body doesn't affect you as much as it does us ladies, but Tamoxifen can cause all sorts of odd and unexpected side effects.  It may be that you feel a little down and this is causing the stress and grinding.  

Have a word with your breast care nurse and/or oncologist to see if they have heard of this happening to others and perhaps get an x-ray and/or an ultrasound just to rule out anything sinister.

A few days wouldn't hurt, even a couple of weeks, and see if it eases.  Not medically qualified though.

Ditto what mistymoley typed :-)

At least seeing if stopping the tablets eases it gives you a pointer.

G n' J

Thanks again. I'll let you know how I get on.

:)

I have had intermittent jaw pain since being diagnosed but noticed that it's worse with stress on appointment days and that I grind and clench my teeth more with the worry of what's beyond my control. Going to try relaxation classes this week to see if this will release builtbup tensions.

Good luck Peepee. I'd love to know how you get on. It might be something I should look in to.

Just an update to this.

I was allowed off Tamoxifen for 8 weeks and it didn't make any difference to my jaw pain at all. There has been a lot of tooing and froing between Doctors and Professors. I have just had a head MRI scan and I'll be getting the resul of that next week.

I think at the end of it all I'll either need one of those gumshields to stop me clenching my teeth or after my two check-up results next week (one for the head scan and then the other will be my 12 month re-scan) I might start to relax a bit.

Mike