Breast cancer rate plunged 7 pct. in '03

Breast cancer rate plunged 7 pct. in '03 - Yahoo! News (AP)

OMG!

This story is about me and my breast cancer.

Okay, not specifically me, but a big group of women just like me.

Me:

"U.S. breast cancer rates plunged an unprecedented 7 percent in 2003, the year after millions of women stopped taking menopause hormones when a study showed the pills raise the risk of tumors."

I quit my HRT in the Summer of 2002 because I wished to get away from hormones and try more natural ways of dealing with menopausal issues. My doctors' original arguments for my HRT use was prevention of osteoporosis. That, in fact, was what clinched my decision to accept their HRT. (I had been resistant and argumentative about it for years. I never have gone along blindly with authorities - I have to be convinced.)

Anyway, I had gotten osteoporosis in spite of my HRT. I had no bad menopause symptoms (or whatever you call them). So, why continue the HRT?

That Fall in 2003 I was diagnosed with breast cancer. Interestingly, my tumors were very strongly receptive to hormones. "Strongly receptive" is pathology jargon for the years I was taking HRT I was feeding my tumors an all-you-can-eat gourmet buffet! Every day every HRT pill I popped was a feast for my tumors.

Creepy! Makes me angry, too.

I've been through surgery, chemo, and radiation. Any possibly remaining tumor cells are now being starved with a hormone-blocker, Tamoxefin.

Even an onocology nurse thought it likely that my breast cancer was due to HRT. She also mentioned the problem of too many women having too large a hormone-load during their lifetimes. For example, I, as so many young women in the '70s, took birth-control pills. And, those were strong birth-control pills in those days - big hormone doses. I've had a big hormone load in my life. I didn't do anything wrong - this is what women my age were encouraged to do by our doctors: take "The Pill" and, then later, HRT.

That HRT could have killed me - no lie. Thank God for mammography - I never would have known. Even my doctors couldn't feel my tumors.

I have looked into the calls for class-action suits against Wyeth - I fit the criteria. I just haven't bothered with it, although my kids are encouraging me to do so.

Me again:

"Cases dropped most among women 50 and older — the age group taking hormones. The decline was biggest for tumors whose growth is fueled by estrogen — the type most affected by hormone use....

[After the big fall off of HRT use in 2002-03] Estrogen-sensitive tumors declined twice as much as tumors that are not fueled by estrogen. The decline in incidence among women ages 50-69 was three times that of other age groups."

Wow!

The big take-away from this news:

= This likely reduces my risk of recurrence in that I am not taking HRT (exactly the opposite, with my Tamoxefin use).

= It probably reduces my daughters' risk for breast cancer. (Although my cancer was never believed to be genetically-driven. But, still...this report does point to reduced risk for my daughters.)

= Avoid HRT! Not just me - all you women over 40 reading this.