After one year with silicone implants I started getting arthritis myself. The doctors I asked denied a possible connection with the implants even though the company that makes the implants asks all kinds of questions about bone and joint pain in their regular survey. It never occurred to me to ask if there is a connection with the chemo treatment. However, the recent answer from a physician friend from Germany made the most sense to me. He said, whatever affects the immune system can be an initial trigger for an autoimmune response from the body. And since arthritis is an autoimmune disease, it would explain a basic connection between all three: chemo, the implants and arthritis.

All the best for your friend.

Yes - chemo can accelerate the aging process in women. I had chemo in 2006, and am much more achy, and suffer with joint pain.

I asked my oncologist about this yesterday. He said aromatase inhibitors (which I am on, as is my friend about whom I wrote the original post) absolutely are associated with acute arthritis. Typical locations are the feet and hands -- and it is so bad that some women have to discontinue the arimidex. I can't imagine pain so bad that I would give up a drug with such proven benefits, but he says it happens, and I am worried about my friend, who is in real pain.