[Debbie L.]

Nope, no rheumatologist. Since it's not really arthritis nor auto-immune disease to blame, I'm not sure if they'd be the ones to see or not. But maybe so -- I guess they do all bone/muscle issue, right?

I've seen studies that report they can see "tenosynovial thickening" (or edema) and sometimes more fluid around the joints, on MRI looking for reasons for pain while on AIs.

It seems like people find the various NSAIDs to be the most helpful for this pain. Also, some women have reported dramatic improvement when they supplement with Vitamin D (I don't know if this has been studied formally).

If you google "tenosynovial thickening ai" you will get lots of interesting hits (but no solutions, alas).

I took Arimidex for 2 years, with a fair amount of pain/stiffness. Since stopping it, I have had lots of tendon-ish issues. Carpal tunnel, steadily worsening. IT Band tightness and pain that limits my hiking (I am NOT a runner). Drastically decreased hand strength. And several other random pain/tightness things that have been somewhat helped by a chiro who does ART (active release techniques) on the tendons and sheaths.

The other thing I usually mention when this topic comes up is that we keep seeing associations between NSAID/aspirin use and decreased cancer. It seems to me like in all the studies looking at AI efficacy in preventing cancer recurrence, we should also be tracking NSAID use, which is bound to be increased because of the pain issues. It could be a significant confounder, especially when comparing Tamoxifen and AIs.

That's a lot more than you asked. Sorry, I got carried away.

Debbie Laxague