Sorry I haven't written much here lately. I've been spending a lot of time writing on my new examiner column. If you haven't checked it out, do so, but clicking here:
http://www.examiner.com/x-51675-Fort-Worth-LittleKnown-Facts-ExaminerI've been doing some reading and field trips to find ideas. I really am running short on topics. I have a few I'm trying to get more information about but am running into some roadblocks. If anyone has any ideas, feel free to let me know.
As far as my health goes, it's been ok lately. No more news on the cancer side at least. I did however, get a bad test result showing hyper thyroid. They are wanting me to go in for a thyroid scan next week to confirm it. I did a little research on this and it appears it could be caused by the Tamoxifen they have me taking to lower my estrogen and prevent recurrence of breast cancer. I found an article from the journal of oncology on pubmed and I have a call in with the oncologist office to see if it's possible. I'm hoping it's the cause actually. I'm not real interested in having to go through radiation to kill my thyroid and taking synthetic thyroid medication for the rest of my life. Here's the article:
Journal of Clinical Oncology, Vol 13, 854-857, Copyright © 1995 by American Society of Clinical Oncology
Thyroid function test changes with adjuvant tamoxifen therapy in postmenopausal women with breast cancer
CC Mamby, RR Love and KE Lee
Cancer Prevention Program, University of Wisconsin Comprehensive Cancer Center, Madison, USA.
PURPOSE: While tamoxifen has been shown to alter concentration of many hormones and their binding globulins, there have been conflicting results regarding its effects on thyroid function tests. We sought to clarify these effects by studying subjects in a controlled clinical trial. PATIENTS AND METHODS: We evaluated a subset of postmenopausal women who had participated in a longitudinal, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled toxicity study of tamoxifen 10 mg orally, twice daily. There were 14 subjects in both the tamoxifen and placebo groups. Measurement of thyroid-binding globulin (TBG), thyroxine uptake (T- Uptake), thyroxine (T4), and thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH), and an indirect estimate of the free T4 index (FTI), were made for each subject before and after 3 months of treatment. RESULTS: For T-Uptake, T4, and TBG, there were significant increases in the mean change from baseline to 3 months in the tamoxifen group compared with the placebo group (P = .02, .0001, and .003, respectively), while there were no significant changes in the measured TSH and in the calculated FTI. CONCLUSION: We conclude that tamoxifen therapy in postmenopausal women results in increased TBG, with secondary increases in measured T-Uptake and T4 following. However, TSH and FTI levels are unchanged, and treated women remain eumetabolic.
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