The Ice Queen Cometh (The Olympic-Level Struggle of Getting Dressed)
Lived Experience
6/16/20262 min read
I have been wearing bras since I was 11 years old – so, A LOT of decades!
And when I started wearing them, there was no such thing as a “front closure” bra. The hook-and-eye closure was in the back. Not a big deal. Back then. I was limber enough to reach behind my back to put it on and then unhook it at the end of the day.
Then one day, it was harder to do that.
And as the days, weeks, and months went by, it was more and more difficult…and painful! And some days, my body said “No way!”.
What was going on? Was I just stiffening up in my older age? Why did my upper arms hurt so much whenever I did simple things like put on a t-shirt, take off a t-shirt, blow-dry my hair, put on a baseball cap, pick up the laundry basket full of clothes, and so on?
It was like I had become a T. rex with an itty-bitty reach!
Well, my friends, you are not going crazy. Enter “Frozen Shoulder”. Apparently, this menopause “symptom” is almost as common as the ubiquitous hot flashes and night sweats. However, I had never heard of it before. And suffered with it for YEARS (and I still do today).
As I continue to research this “symptom”, there appears to be no well-defined plan on how to reverse it. I see a lot of physical therapy options that take a l-o-n-g time to try to unravel it. HRT does not seem to be helping it on my end; and OTC pain medications are useless for me – I’ve tried them all! I have been trying some red-light therapy and really focusing on the stretches for my arm and shoulder workouts to see if I can get it to loosen up a little. I have also tried using one of those massage guns like athletes use to see if I can get the fascia to break up and maybe that will give me some relief. Short of seeing another specialist, I guess I will have good days and bad days.
#MenopauseAwareness #MenopauseBrainHealth #Perimenopause #HormoneHealth #MidlifeWomen #MenopauseSupport #WomensHealth #FrozenShoulder