Vaginal Estriol Cream

[kykeon22]

Hi everybody,

I have some doubts that are hunting me and keep me in a thoughtful state. Can I share them with you? maybe someone on this forum could help me in disentangling them or at least get rid of them.

Does aynone knows estriol vaginal cream? I have read that in USA it's not on the market, but here in Europe it is available. My mother used it to cure the dryness of the endometrium. Now I have a doubt about it being safe. On the leaflet accompanying the cream it's written clear as the light of the day that the cream shouldn't be used by patients suffering from a breast cancer hormone receptive. The cream was given by the gyno to my mom. We didn't trust her, because nearly 10 years ago she gave my mom hormones therapy to alleviate the symptomes of menoupause though my mother always said to her that her breast felt as swollen and hard as soccer balls the gyno always told her that the pills were safe and that she should take them. As a result five years later my mom was diagnosed with a breast cancer stage IV with nodules as large as 5 cm in the left breast and metastasis in the lung and in the liver. Strangely enough the cancer was strongly sensitive to the hormones. And my mother has given birth to 9 babies, she has been pregnat for nine times nine months. Theoretically she was safe from breast cancer because everybody knows pregnancy acts as a proteciont against breast cancer. But she was diagnosed with a very advanced breast cancer anyway. Luckily enough herceptin and arimidex did their magic on her tumor and she went NED. Then last year she changed therapy and went on tyverb and navalbine for a recurrence in the lung. She wasn't taking arimidex anymore. I was a little concerned because her tumor was strongly receptive to the hormones, i was thinking that we were not using all the tools available to kill the tumor. But luckily enough again the therapy proved its efficacy and she went NED. In May ot this year her PET Scan was clear and the tumor makers showed no activity of the tumor. We were all very happy and life was nice. Then my mom had little drops of blood coming down her vagina. Concerned and very reluctantly we went to the gyno (we were trying to avoid her). The gyno af first suspected a tumor of the endometrium which scared the hell out of us, but then furher analysis showed she was wrong. The endometrium was just dry because of lack of estrogen. She then gave us this cream containing estriol, a type of estrogen far less potent and far less harmful than estradiol, the hormone which on the contrary is hold as responsable for breast cancer. Of corse we couldn't trust her, and so before applying the cream we asked the onco about the safety of the cream. to me the onco appeared quite skeptical and maybe not wanting to contradict the opionion of a colleagues doctor reassured us about the safety of the cream. He said that the amount of estriol was very very very little, and that it would be absorbed locally not reaching the breast. To me he didn't appear much convinced of his own words, in fact he then added. "but don't use it too much, i mean, just one month, and then stop. See if the bleeding stops".

My mom applied the cream, she was feeling well, though sometimes she felt her breasts were slightly harder. My doubt about the cream never stopped, but I trusted the onco. She used the cream for about 2 months, from mid june to mid august when the last tumor marker test showed that the tumor was back. Scared from that she stopped the twice a week application of the estriol vaginal cream. The last Pet Scan showed a local progression of the disease at the level of the lungs. The onco changed the therapy, adding an antracycline and aromasin to the pills of the tyverb.
So why does he add aromasin now? why now does he think that we need to stop estrogen from feeding the tumor?

During our last meeting I told the onco tha my mom had stopped applying the cream because she was worried it had caused the tumor to grow back. He didn't answer directly, but told us that it was okay to stop with it, he appeared relieved that we had taken the decision by ourselves and then told us, almost insisted, that we should see the gyno again for a check. Though my mom doesn't feel the need for a check and she is scared and angry with her gyno to the point that she is pondering about seeing another gyno.

For my part I'm almost convinced that the estriol cream contributed to the tumor to grow back, though I cannot telll it for sure. The onco behevior seems to comfirm my suspects. I know that in this field there is nothing for sure, and that most of the time is just a trial and error procedure. I don't blame the onco, he thought that the estriol was safe which it wasn't. But I'm angry with the gyno. Why prescribe hormones therapy to alleviate the symptom of the menopause? The menopause is just a natural process of life. Why do the gyno feel the need to disrupt that natural process by giving hormones that by now are well known to be very harmfull if not perfectly well balanced? Human being has done without hormone therapy for millions of year and they have just done fine.That's crazy. That's illogic and very stupid.