Hi Leonberger welcome to the forum and sorry that you have not had a reply as yet.
I think all the drugs that are like Tamoxifen do have side effects and some people get lots and some people get none it is so variable and. I can imagine that if you had a chat with your breast team they would be the best ones to advise about taking breaks and for how long if this is advised at all.
Sorry not to have been of much help for you but I'm sure one of the the lovely folks on here will be along soon with other thoughts for you.
Sorry you've not had a reply from someone with the same experience, I see you posted this before a few months ago. I'm on Tamoxifen but haven't had severe side effects so can't share that experience with you but I know there have been people in the past who have taken a break from it. I can't remember how often or for how long. (I've been using the site for a few years)
Your previous post was about joint pain so I did a search for that - most of the threads were for joint pain on the various AI drugs but this one has a post with someone suffering it on Tamoxifen. Not sure it's a huge help to you, though.
I'm guessing you are taking a break under your team's advice? So I assume they have looked for any other causes. The only suggestion I can make is to try to switch brands to see if you find one that is better for you. The medical people have trouble believing us, but so many people find that the brand makes a difference (myself included) that I think there must be some truth in it.
My other suggestion would be to post this in Ask a Nurse - they are the experts and should be able to give you some more information.
Hopefully someone with some personal experience will be along soon, but if not please feel free to bump your post. This is a really busy group and sometimes things don't get seen by everyone when they get too far down the list but any reply will put it back to the top so sometimes if you bump it up you might get a reply.
Hopefully we'll be able to get some advice for you one way or another
Hi Leon berger, this isn't about breaks, which I know was your question, but you might ask your onchologist or breast care nurse about venloflexine, its a mild antidepressant which my onchologist put me on when I was finding the side effects, hot flushes, which is a mild way of putting it of tamoxifen intolerable, you get over one and your just preparing for the next, rather than taking breaks I would advise to ask your professional about this, it doesn't stop the hots but my goodness it turns them down and makes them less frequent and shorter, I understand they are all consuming
Also all the 'other' side effects really do become more bearable and level out with time and a lot of patience, I know its hard, I really do, try and bear with it rather than stopping and starting
