It comes down to hormones, and specifically, a major drop in estrogen that can happen when your cancer treatment involves:
- Surgery to remove your ovaries, where most of the body’s estrogen is made
- Anti-estrogen hormone therapies, including Tamoxifen and aromatase inhibitors like Letrozole
- Chemotherapy, which shuts down your ovaries, sometimes permanently
- All these treatments help you beat breast cancer but they also impact estrogen levels, and can cause some of the same symptoms natural menopause does, but even faster.