I made an incredible discovery that I want to share regarding a frozen shoulder or possibly other similar joint issues.
Recently my shoulder started to get stiff and painful. Over a period of a few days it worsened such that I could hardly use my arm at all. I had a hard time sleeping as it was so painful I couldn’t get comfortable enough to get to sleep.
Frozen Shoulder and Hormones
I started researching to figure out what this was and concluded it was a condition called “Frozen Shoulder”. This condition most often effects menopausal women. As I read up more and more about this condition, I got more and more freaked out. It can last a year. Painful physical therapy is most recommended. Most pain meds don’t help it. I studied all of the top medical sites – Mayo Clinic, WebMD and others. It all just sounded absolutely horrible. The thought of losing the use of my arm for a year and enduring this pain was more than depressing. Overall it was looking pretty bleak.
So I studied more to find alternative treatments and stumbled upon a few obscure articles and some forums that talked about the relation of frozen shoulder and hormones. It made sense since this most often effects women in menopause.
So I applied doses of my bio-identical hormone creams (both estrogen and progesterone) that day and again that night before bed. By the time I woke up the next morning it was greatly improved and I mean a LOT. Within a couple days of daily application of these hormone creams it was completely back to normal.
One doesn’t need to be in menopause to have hormones go out of balance. This can happen at any age, but most definitely happens just before and during menopause. And I don’t recommend just slathering on some creams. Go to a clinic that specializes in bioidentical hormones and get your levels checked and get properly prescribed bioidentical hormones, not synthetic hormones that have risks and dangerous side effects.
Can you imagine going through a year of agony by not knowing that some simple hormone replacement could handle the whole situation within a day or two? WOW! That blew me away.
Not to mention the fact that I have been experiencing more and more joint pain in recent months – what do you know, it had everything to do with my estrogen levels dropping when I went into menopause.
If you Google frozen shoulder and hormones you will see a large number of articles about the connection. Here is one article about it: https://www.34-menopause-symptoms.com/joint-pain.htm – see under “Causes of Joint Pain” section.
Needless to say, if you know of anyone with this condition or other joint pain problems, please pass on this information and save them a lot of needless misery!!
I’m so glad I came across this article. I’ve been dealing with frozen shoulder since last Sept and it’s already the end of May. I have been receiving chiro and massage treatments for the past 3 weeks and they are very painful on my shoulder. I read your article on Friday and started applying both estrogen and progesterone that night and Saturday night. It’s Sunday night and I cannot believe how my range of motion has already improved! I’m still doing the exercises my chiro recommended and I know the improvements are because of the creams. I do use progesterone cream periodically, but since late Aug of last year I’ve had some major life changes so the extra stress must be really taxing my body. I’m sure I will have normal range of motion back before my next chiro appt! Thank you SO much!
So happy to hear this helped. It was miraculous for me. I do a lot of writing and it is always nice to hear something ended up helping another.
Hi Debbie, I have two frozen shoulders, one 11 months and one 2 months. I would love to try this. Did you mean to apply the estrogen and progesterone creams directly to the shoulder/arm/neck? And at the same time (mixed) or first one then the other after the first has dried? Thanks!
Hi Cynthia, I’m sorry to hear about your pain and I certainly hope this helps. The first time this happened I was using a compounded bioidentical hormone cream that was both estrogen (Biest) and progesterone. And yes, I slathered the (prescribed dose) right on my shoulder. The next day there was an improvement and within 2 or 3 days it was completely gone and back to normal. This flared up again once more months later after I had been traveling and missed days of my hormones. By this time I had changed to an estrogen cream that I used in the morning and oral progesterone that I took at night. I applied the estrogen cream to the shoulder area that day and took the progesterone at night. By the next day it was almost back to normal and was totally good by the next day. I don’t know if it made any difference putting in on the shoulder area, as the hormones go into the bloodstream through the skin, so it probably didn’t matter where it was applied, just that it was applied. Also, I want to stress that these were bioidentical hormones, not synthetic and they were prescribed by a doctor and prescribed through a compounding pharmacy. Please know that I am not a doctor or medical professional. It just happened to me and this is what helped me. I hope this helps you. You will be in my prayers for rapid recovery.
Thank you so much! I am using bio-identical hormone creams as well, but I hadn’t really been faithful in the application over the past few years until recently. They are two separate creams so I will use my estrogen in the morning and the progesterone at night. Fingers crossed! I will keep you posted.
Hi Amanda, do you mean that you applied them directly to the shoulder/arm/neck? And did you mix the creams together or apply one then the other once the first was dry? I have two frozen shoulders and I would really like to try this! Thanks.
Hi Debbie, thank you for being so kind and supportive in so quickly responding to my (many) attempts to reach out to you. I guess it shows the desperate state of mind I was in yesterday. . 🙂
I wanted to update you so far because I have had an interesting experience already with my shoulders after one day of application – morning with my estrogen cream and late afternoon with my progesterone cream.
Toward the late evening, I got extreme sensations in my right (most recent and in the painful freezing stage) shoulder and arm all the way down to my fingers. It was a painful experience but it felt like a running, like something was moving. It lasted a couple of hours while I was doing further research. During that time I found Dr. Northrup’s website, which talks about the emotional causes beneath the physical and that clicked as well. Anger and grief seem to be a big factor in FS. I do believe that these issues have to be healed as well as the physical, but I had been so focused on the physical that I forgot about that.
Anyway, as I was reading about the anger/FS connection, the running painful sensations stopped and my shoulder felt much better! This morning when I woke up (I’m blessed that I actually can get a good sleep almost every night) my arm was very painful, but that is common. Once I got out of bed, had my walk and got moving, it felt much better. It still feels better, less pain and looser than it did yesterday. Remembering that it has been excruciatingly painful and that I haven’t been able to move it pretty much at all, that is definitely a step of progress!
My dear partner, who has been an angel through all of this, just applied the correct dosage of my estrogen cream to both shoulders so I will see how I hold up during the day as I move it more. The left side I haven’t noticed much with yet, but that shoulder is significantly less painful and has some ROM already as I am almost a year into it on that side.
I will keep you updated on my progress. If this works for me, I will be forever grateful to you and I will shout it from the rooftops to all of those other women of years who suffer from this strange and awful condition. Bless you.
Hi Cynthia,
Thanks so much for the update. I was so happy to hear that there were some improvements. Please keep me posted. There are some supplements that I can suggest that may be of help too if you would like.