3 back, neck and shoulder problems during perimenopause and menopause

Today's topic

Today on A.Vogel Talks Menopause, I take a closer look at how your back, neck and shoulders can be affected during perimenopause and menopause.

We know from all the emails and telephone calls that have come in how many women suffer from aches and pains in menopause. It's an extremely common problem and many women will experience this at some point along the journey.

Today, I am going to take a look at 3 back, neck and shoulder issues that you may experience, why they happen, and what you can do to help yourself.

1. Frozen shoulder & shoulder pain

This encompasses quite a few different things. Your shoulder joint is a very complex joint as there are quite a lot of bones involved, as well as tendons and ligaments. It's not a simple one like your knuckles. Your shoulder joint is covered in a sort of capsule that's filled with fluid to keep everything together and to keep everything moving.

Unfortunately, during menopause, a lot of issues can arise with our posture, with the health of our bones, and with tendons and ligaments tightening up. What happens here is that the whole area inside this capsule can start to tighten up, affecting your range of movement and causing a lot of pain and inflammation. It will restrict everything. If you've got shoulder pain and you're trying to put your bra on, it can be really, really hard. Even picking things up can affect it with the increase of pressure or weight. It can also become very red, hot, sore.

Some women find they get shooting pains up around their shoulder. For lots of women, the pain gets worse at night. This is all due to, unfortunately, the healing process. Your body is trying to heal the area and open up the blood vessels so that everything can start to improve. In that process, however, there can be a lot of inflammation and that will cause pain.

During menopause, your sleep may already be disrupted because of night sweats or anxiety. You are just not getting off to sleep and to cap it all you are starting to get this really severe pain in your shoulder. There is not a lot that can be done about this medically. It tends to be just painkillers, so it's one that you really need to take care of as soon as you start to feel something happening here.

2. Neck and shoulder stiffness and tension

Stress is often at the root of neck and shoulder stiffness and tension. When we get stressed and anxious, we tighten everything up, so the muscles in the whole neck and shoulder area are continually squeezed. They get stiff and that can then end up causing headaches and migraines.

The other issue here is if you're anything like me, you can start to slump, especially if sitting at a desk for long periods of the day. This is also not helped by sitting in the wrong chair or if your posture isn't good.

Dehydration can be an issue because that will affect the muscles and the joints, and also lack of exercise. If you're sitting in one position day after day, especially if you're getting tense, this can have a huge impact. If you are sitting at a desk, getting up and stretching, doing a little bit of bending, backbends, and a few twists and turns can make a huge amount of difference here.

3. Lower and upper back pain

You may either feel it just below the waistline (lower back pain), or you can feel it just below the shoulders, or up the neck (upper back bain). Again, this is very often due to posture changes.

When we go through menopause, our muscle mass can change. It can decrease meaning your muscles shrink and also get weaker. That will affect the way your spine is held. You see some elderly women have the dowager's hump, purely because the spine has got so weak. Very often that is due to muscle weakness to start with. If your muscles are weak, that's going to put added pressure on your spine and will possibly affect the nerves.

You can also get referred pain. If you have problems with your lower back, that can sometimes be felt in the knees and even the feet. Having good back health and good spinal posture is really important for the whole musculoskeletal system.

It can due, again, to lack of exercise or to stress. You're just tightening everything up.

If you're getting lower back pain that's not actually in or on the spine, but beside it and it tends to come and go, this can very often indicate kidney stress. That's often due to dehydration. If the pain's coming or going, it may just be a case that your kidneys are struggling a little bit, especially if you're also experiencing hot flushes and night sweats.

What can help ease back, neck and shoulder problems?

There are several things I tend to recommend to help ease back, neck and shoulder issues during perimenopause and menopause:

Consult a chiropractor - I recommend seeking the advice of a chiropractor as they can assess your spine. They can see exactly what's going wrong. Probably very quickly, they can see if you need any gentle manipulation or if there's any exercises that you can do that will help to release any muscle tension or muscle contraction.

Do at-home stretches - as I mentioned before, if you're at a desk a lot, then get up regularly and do some little stretches. Pilates and yoga are both great. I would be as stiff as a board if I didn't do my regular yoga. You could also try tai chi. It's another great one for helping to keep everything lovely and limbered up. Just go onto YouTube. There's loads of exercises that you can do. I've seen classes, that are just five-minute stretch classes and that's sometimes all you need. It doesn't take a lot of your time.

Herbal remedies – there is our licensed remedy, Atrosan, which is made from Devil's claw, which is licensed for muscle and joint aches and pain. We've also got our Atrogel Arnica gel for aches and pains, which is something you can apply to help ease pain and discomfort.

A.Vogel Atrogel | Muscle Aches & Pains | Arnica Gel for Pain Relief | 100ml

• ACHES & PAINS: Traditional herbal medicinal product used to relieve muscular aches and pains, as well as neck & shoulder stiffness, bruising and associated swelling, and for sporting injuries (sprains)
• TARGETED PAIN RELIEF GEL: Apply the gel directly onto the affected area
• FRESH ARNICA: Made from extracts of fresh Arnica flowers - contains 50% arnica extract
• Easy to apply, non-greasy gel.

"This is a very good gel which has helped me with shoulder and neck pain for many years"

Read more customer reviews

Find Atrogel Arnica gel in a store near you

Keep hydrated - dehydration will affect all these symptoms and make them worse so remember your daily water intake. That's really important and that can make a difference very quickly.

Posture - remember your posture when you're sitting up and when you're standing as well. If you want to know more about good posture, there is something called the Alexander Technique which can be absolutely amazing. So that's certainly something that you can look into as well.

I hope you found this one helpful. If any of you have any other tips that you found really helpful for these particular situations, please do share them because we would love to see them.

Until next week, take care.