Hormone therapy
Different hormone therapy drugs cause different side effects.
This page tells you about some of the side effects that hormone therapy may cause. Your healthcare team will tell you about specific side effects of your own treatment.
It’s important to remember that you probably won't get every side effect listed, everyone is different.
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Some hormone therapies can cause vaginal bleeding. It is most common when you first start hormone therapy, or if you switch from one treatment to another.
You might have:
a change to your usual periods
bleeding between your periods
bleeding after you periods have stopped
Tell your healthcare team if you have any of these.
Hot flushes and sweating can be troublesome. How often you have them and how long they last will vary from person to person.
Getting overheated, drinking tea or coffee, and smoking can all make flushes worse.
Talk to your healthcare team if you have problems coping with hot flushes and sweating. There are treatments that may help.
Read more about hot flushes and sweating
Your risk of blood clots (thrombosis) can slightly increase when you take some types of hormone therapy. Tell your doctor if you or a close relative have had a blood clot in the past.
Tell your doctor or call 111 if you have pain, redness or swelling in your legs. Also tell them if you have sudden breathlessness, chest pain, or if you cough up blood.
Read more information about blood clots
Last reviewed: 07 Feb 2024
Next review due: 08 Feb 2027
Some cancers use hormones to grow or develop. Hormone therapy works by blocking or lowering the amount of these hormones.
Some cancer treatments can affect the levels of sex hormones. This can cause a range of different symptoms. But there are things you can do and treatments to help you cope with these changes.
There are many cancer drugs, cancer drug combinations and they have individual side effects.
Search for the cancer type you want to find out about. Each section has detailed information about symptoms, diagnosis, treatment, research and coping with cancer.
Hormone therapy blocks or lowers the amount of hormones in the body to stop or slow down the growth of cancer.
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