Back in October I wrote about my frozen shoulder. At the time, I was mostly thinking about the importance of doing my exercises. Since then, I have connected with numerous women friends who are also suffering from frozen shoulder, or who have had it in the recent past.
There have been countless posts on this blog about gender biases in health – obesity, heart health, concussion, even feet. That’s just the first few that showed up in a quick search. A fabulous Radiolab podcast called “The Unsilencing”, about autoimmune diseases in women and the research (or lack of it) into causes, got me adding a new one to the of under-researched ailments felt predominantly by women: frozen shoulder.
There are all kinds of articles stating categorically that there is no direct link between menopause and frozen shoulder, even though the majority of sufferers are women between the ages of 45 and 60. There are a few studies that show hormone replacement therapy can help. Relaxin, which is produced during pregnancy, can reverse symptoms (just like estriol did for women suffering MS in that podcast). Estrogen can help prevent frozen shoulder from developing.
My shoulder is getting somewhat better, but my physiotherapist is recommending an ultrasound to see what else is going on, as it is still far too weak and inflexible after eight months of therapy. She immediately offered to write me a letter too, since her experience is that too many doctors don’t take it seriously.
I tried to find an entertaining image to finish this post on a relatively poorly understood aspect of women’s health, but all were of men. So you get a penguin with a frozen shoulder.
