[donocco]

Teal

I learned a lot of this in pharmacy school and continuing education. Some info may be fuzzy. I should research before I say anything but using the puter is not what it was in the past. You focus on an article and literally minutes pass before you can scroll up or down as the many advertisements click on. This makes me a bit lazy. Not good.

The Vitamin D info is fresh. It seems that a blood level of the active vitamin D metabolite measured should be 65-70ng/ml. It may help with the joint pains caused by Aromatase Inhibitors and it might be valuable, along with appropriate oncology drugs to slow down the breast cancer. When they measure things like 10 year survival the women (99% of breast cancer patients are women) with the highest Vitamin D Blood levels do the best. Many doctors see a Vitamin D level of 30ng/ml as "normal" when it should be higher in patents with breast cancer. Some docs fear Vitamin D toxicity and hypercalcemia but the toxic blood level of Vitamin D is over 150ng/ml. Have your Vitamin D level checked. If it is below 66ng/ml, the doctor can prescribe the prescription Vitamin D 50,000 units once a week and after a few weeks check your level again. It it is still below 66mg/ml he could prescribe the drug 2 days per week, etc etc. Patients with rickets have been known to take over one million units Vitamin D daily.

As far as how low do you need the estrogen level to be brought down I think it is the same level of a woman in menopause. I don't know the specific number but will research it if you want to know. I assume you ovaries have been shut down. Usually they use a drug called Zoladex once a month. The Aromatase Inhibitors stop estrogen formation in the adrenal and fat tissue. I'm pretty sure the ovaries have to be shut down (or removed) before you can use Aromatase Inhibitors. If I'm wrong someone will jump in and say so.

Yes Aromasin (Extramestane) is a steroid compound. The body takes a weak Androgen called Androstenedione and makes it into a weak Estrogen called Estrone using the enzyme Aromatase. Since both Androstendione and Estrone are steroids it was thought that a steroid form Aromatase Inhibitor would be more effective than the non steroid ones like Femara (Letrozole)
and Arimidex (Anastrazole). Docs still use a lot of the non steroid Aromatase Inhibitors, particularly Femara so thde "steroid advantage" of Aromasin may be more theoretical than real. different patients respond differently to different drugs. I will research the idea of a lower dosage of aromatase inhibitor but my guess is you need the standard dosage to get the estrogen level down to a postmenpausal state. Well see.

Paul