Hello, Melissa. Welcome to our community.

While you wait to hear from those who have hands-on experience with tamoxifen, see a similiar question and my comment with links:

Tamoxifen side effects?

http://www.healthcentral.com/breast-cancer/c/9933/16968/comments/

I hope you find this helpful. Let me know if I can provide more info for you.

Best,

Maria

I'm curious what serious side effects you are concerned about.  The most serious ones I read and heard about were pretty low probability.  Not that that matters if you GET those side effects, but I went ahead and started taking it almost 2 months ago now.  I'm 37, Stage I, node neg.  From what I understand, reasearch suggests that the tamoxifen actually only decreases the chance for recurrence by somewhere around 2% (at least that was the case for me, from 9% to 7%--I think it is different depending on the make-up of each person's cancer cells.)  Did you have chemo?  For me, chemo would have only decreased chance of recurrence by another 2% (from 7% to 5%), so I opted not to have it (that was my oncologist's recommendation, as well.)

Side effects I have had include vaginal discharge and mild hot flashes a couple times a day.  I have also had an increase in depression symtoms, but haven't been able to determine if that is related to the tamoxifen or not (I was already taking meds for depression before all this).  Anyway, don't know if that helps, but there it is, for what it's worth.  Good luck making your decision...I know how hard it can be!

Jolene