Shoulders Pain during Perimenopause and Menopause. Are they related?

Frozen, stiff, as

I wrote a book.

Its about my endometriosis experience to help others avoid my outcome and especially to avoid the loss of their ovaries. It is currently being edited so it will be available shortly. Please let me know if you are interested and I will send a link to pre order it.

FYI, you do not need to lose your ovaries to manage your endometriosis. That common refrain many like to say “you don’t need it any longer”, referring to my uterus, is not valid. Scientific studies on women’s bodies is and has been historically wanting. Pharmaceutical companies were averse to testing with women because our hormones fluctuate with great regularity or we could suddenly become pregnant. Our bodies are in a constant state of shifting. So are men’s but most clinical studies like to work with female rats, yes rats, and men rather than women, yet they confidently prescribe drugs and drug potencies for women based on those clinical studies. Women react differently to drugs due to our different hormonal make up, metabolism, and adipose tissue. The list of how we differ from men and rats is very long.

As I shift through perimenopause, into menopause and post menopause, the changes I’m experiencing in my body remind me that others might benefit from my insight. There is little literature about women with endometriosis as they go through this change. Knowing I’m in menopause or post menopause is challenging without a uterus. (However they are a few ways to assess, one is by taking your basal temperature daily; as long as you’re not taking progesterone, which raises your temperature slightly.)

So, what’s happening now?

Shoulders. I have two of them. I’ve had three three frozen shoulders since starting perimenopause in my mid 40s. Depending on who you consult with for the acute level of pain and lack of shoulder mobility, their assessment and final diagnoses can vary greatly. As long as you have not injured your shoulder prior to the onset of the pain, its probable that your shoulder issue is a result of the hormone shift your body is experiencing while the estrogen, progesterone and testosterone levels rise and dip on the perimenopause roller-coaster to menopause and post menopause.

“Given that older women are most commonly affected by adhesive capsulitis, there may be a connection between the loss of estrogen in menopause and this painful shoulder condition,” Anne Ford, M.D., associate professor in the Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology at Duke University School of Medicine.