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[quote=Anonymous]I am OP. I came across this thread when doing research, and I wanted to update my experience with brain fog and the aromatase inhibitor so others could benefit.

The cause of my extreme dementia like brain fog turned out to be significant depletion of vitamin D by the aromatize inhibitor. My vitamin D dropped from 35 to 20 in a matter of weeks after starting medication. Once my vitamin D dropped, my calcium also dropped, which then made my PTH shoot up. The combination of low And high PTH was what really made me feel terrible. In addition, the medication made me anemic which contributed to fatigue.

My oncologist at Georgetown was terrible and refused to figure this out, run any blood work, or consider the mechanism by which the medication could be causing my problems, even though there is plenty of research about aromatase inhibitors, estrogen, depletion, and vitamin D depletion. She just kept trying to switch me to another aromatase medication, and since the AIs have a similar mechanism, switching didn’t help at all.

The problem was solved by taking large doses of vitamin D until I reached about 35 to 40 ng/dl level. The brain fog disappeared.

I’m grateful to my PCP, who listened to my suspicions about the vitamin D connection when my oncologist would not, and advised me about vitamin D supplementation, and provided repeated orders for vitamin D and other blood work so that I could monitor my vitamin D levels and response.

For another PP, who asked, I had Covid a year prior to this brain fog incident, but it didn’t cause me any problems and I didn’t have any long Covid or cognitive after effects. The blood work, symptom tracking, and going on and off the medication showed that the AI was the problem and that I needed to take significantly bigger doses of vitamin D while on the AI.  [/quote]

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