Menopause Joint Pain
Many women experience sore joints, muscle aches, aching knees, and restless legs during their peri-postmenopausal years.
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Are Menopause and Joint Pain Connected?
Yes, they are! Oestrogen, a hormone that decreases during menopause, plays a crucial role in joint health. Many women experience sore joints, muscle aches, aching knees, and restless legs during their peri-postmenopausal years. If you’re facing these symptoms, you’re not alone.
Ask yourself these questions
- Is joint and muscle pain and/or bone density changes affecting your ability to stay active?
- Has your joint soreness and/or muscle pain increased since menopause?
- Are you experiencing achy joints, stiff joints or knee pain?
Have you experienced sore knees or joint pain for the first time since entering menopause?
- Maybe you canât bend down like you used to
- Maybe your aching knees affect your mobility (as do the soles of your feet)
- Maybe your legs feel restless and heavy overnight
- Maybe you canât do the activity you used to
Maybe you canât walk downstairs without your knees hurting - Maybe youâve lost your confidence to do the exercise you love to do
- Maybe you feel dizzy and lose your balance easily, so this has affected your mobility too
- Maybe your bone health has been changing and you arenât sure why.
The Menopause and Joint Health Connection
Did you know that changes in estrogen levels during menopause can affect your joints? When levels decline, this may reduce joint lubrication and elasticity, leading to discomfort, inflammation and pain. Many women mistake these symptoms for the early stages of osteoarthritis, but they could be related to menopause.
But itâs not just about oestrogen declining. Your progesterone, a natural anti-inflammatory agent, also declines during the menopause transition, contributing to worsening inflammation and dryness in your joints.
How Common Is Menopause Joint Pain?
Over 500,000 women globally have completed the MyMTâą Menopause Symptoms Quiz, and 80% report sore joints.
Menopause joint pain affects 80% of women, but you don’t have to suffer through it. Making some simple lifestyle changes can help you.
Hello, Iâm Dr Wendy Sweet [PhD]
When women on my healthy ageing doctoral studies were telling me about their changing health, from increased stress levels to changing cardiovascular health, sore joints, aching knees and restless legs that were keeping them awake and preventing them from exercising the way they used to, I was astounded⊠because thatâs how I felt as well.
Troubled by numerous injuries when I reached my late 40âs and early 50âs, I was confused about why I couldnât tolerate the physical activity I was used to. But the worst thing was that over time, I began to lose my confidence in being as active as I wanted to be as I aged. Women in my studies faced the same concerns.
As someone who has been active all my life, I was devastated. Even more so, when I could no longer do the activities that we liked to do as a family. It seemed that no matter what I did, my knees constantly ached and my joints were sore during and after exercise. Interestingly, none of the medical and health practitioners I consulted found anything wrong.
How amazed was I that women on my healthy women’s aging studies, who were also active, were telling me similar stories? I knew that as part of my studies, I needed to look into what was really going on with menopause joint pain and the feeling that inflammation was increasing in both muscles and joints. What I discovered astounded me.
Donât Give Up On Exercise Yet
Lynn - New Zealand
“My knees no longer ache; I’ve halved my HRY patches; I don’t get up in the night any more and my energy has returned. I also really enjoy your coaching posts and I can’t thank you enough.”
Sylvie - Australia
Debbie - USA
Are you ready to join them?
The effects of menopause on
our joints, muscles and tendons
There are a number of reasons why our joints, muscles and tendons are impacted during menopause. These include:
- Tendons have estrogen receptors on them. The role of these receptors is to harness estrogen to help keep the tendons pliable and flexible.
- Muscles lose size and density as we move through menopause. This is a normal part of our aging, but when this happens it affects the way our tendons work.
- Feelings of dizziness may also impact our balance. Our ear canals contain estrogen too. The role of estrogen in our ears is to help keep the tiny hairs upright, which normally helps us with balance. In menopause, however, as estrogen declines, women often feel dizzy and lose their balance easily.
- We arenât getting the nutrients that joints and muscles need in midlife. This is why changing our nutrition to match our changing hormonal environment is so important to do.
- Menopause hormonal and muscle changes, as well as inflammatory changes, may cause slower collagen turnover. This is why, for many women, doing too much high-impact exercise can cause increased inflammation in the joints and muscles, leading to slower post-exercise recovery.
The good news is that we can counteract this with simple lifestyle changes and certain nutrients.
Understanding the Wear and Tear Theory of Aging
First introduced in 1882 by Dr. August Weismann, this theory suggests that aging results from the accumulation of inflammation due to repeated use of cells and tissues. Modern science supports this theory, highlighting the need to reduce inflammation for better joint health during menopause.
Dr Weismann believed that cells and tissues have vital parts that wear out resulting in more rapid aging from the accumulation of inflammation. Like components of an aging car, parts of the body eventually wear out from repeated use.
Scientists now know that there is some basis for this theory. Hence, reducing inflammation and adhering to an anti-inflammatory diet, is one of your goals during your menopause transition.Â
What You Need To Focus on To Reduce
Inflammation During Menopause
- Getting enough sleep helps reduce inflammation.
- Incorporating specific nutrients into your diet to support joint health
- Following an anti-inflammatory diet
- Following a specific exercise program that supports the stage of menopause you area in, from peri-menopause to post-menopause
Menopause is a vulnerable time for increased inflammation, which also increases the risk of cardiovascular disease and other health issues. Reducing inflammation should be your goal during this transition. Now is the time to focus on a healthy diet and increase certain nutrients that heal and restore your joints.
Improved sleep and gut health are also important, so you can absorb the nutrients you need to combat inflammation. – all solutions which I have for you in the world-class MyMTâą programmes. You’re not alone if you’re having trouble sleeping. 81% of the women who took my Signs Of Menopause Quiz also had trouble sleeping. The good news is that you can make simple lifestyle changes to ensure you get enough sleep, not just to fight fatigue but also to fight inflammation.
Can supplements help with joint pain?
The dietary supplements industry is booming and women arriving in mid-life are often the target. With the promise of mid-life nirvana, whereby all our aches and pains miraculously go away, we end up spending hundreds of dollars on supplements, specialists and various nutrition programmes. They donât call women in their 50s and 60s the âconsumer generationâ for nothing. With our pantries starting to look like a health supplement shop, you think that the supplements work and many of them do ⊠for a while.
âWhen my legs were aching, my joints were sore, my heart-rate was elevated at rest and I had no energy, I was still doing lots of exercise. My pantry was also full of supplements, collagen included. All supplements that I was advised to take by various health professionals at the time.
âBut now I realise that I didnât need all those supplements. My body needed something else. A beautiful nutrient that helps in the production of collagen and is powerful for reducing inflammation in our joints and helping to restore muscle tissueâ.
Extra Virgin Olive Oil and Joint Health
The collagen industry targets women in mid-life, promising relief from aches and pains. However, lifestyle changes, rather than just supplements, are key to reducing inflammation and restoring joint health in the long run. This includes the compounds in Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO) which are known to reduce joint pain and improve joint elasticity.
If you are experiencing joint pain in your peri-postmenopausal years, arm yourself with the knowledge you need to turn this around. Itâs vital you know:
- What nutrients reduce inflammation and improve bone and muscle health specific to menopause
- What foods can replace collagen and oestrogen
- How to sleep all night, allowing your joints to repair overnight
- How to improve blood flow and get vital nutrients into your joints
- Which stretching techniques improve flexibility
- How to stop dizziness and balance concerns
- The best exercises for reducing joint pressure
- What you can do to improve your recovery after exercise
- How to restore and maintain your posture to prevent further injuries
Menopause is not a disease. However, it is a stage of life where changing hormone levels can trigger other health problems.
If you have arrived in midlife (early 40s â late 60s) you are now in a completely different hormonal environment, as your body prepares for its biological ageing.
The key is to adapt your lifestyle
to your changing hormones
You may know that the decline in oestrogen and progesterone during your menopausal transition contributes to symptoms. But, have you ever been told why? And have you ever been informed that there are natural, lifestyle solutions that are scientifically evidenced to relieve your menopausal symptoms? And not just joint inflammation and pain, but other common symptoms, including hot flashes, night sweats, excess weight, changing gut health, high blood pressure and mood changes too.
MyMTâą Restore your Joyful Joints
Research about the specific lifestyle solutions that we need to put into place changed my life and I want the step-by-step lifestyle solutions to change yours too. Thousands of women call this powerful online programme, âlife-changingâ.
For those of you struggling with your joint health I have developed a specific online program, which is now available as a âstand-aloneâ programme for you.
Restore your Joyful Joints
What you will discover are simple techniques for joint pain relief…
- The types of nutrients that you need to reduce inflammation, strengthen tendons, and improve bone and muscle health.
- What foods can replace the role of oestrogen and collagen as they decline.
- How to improve blood flow to get vital nutrients and oxygen into your joints.
- The most effective forms of stretching for improving flexibility and increasing range of motion.
- How to stop the dizziness and balance issues that may be troubling you.
- The most effective forms of exercise to reduce pressure on your joints.
- How to improve your recovery after exercise, so you can exercise more frequently.
- How to restore and maintain your posture to prevent further injuries.
MyMTâą Fitness Foundations
Once you have got on top of your aching joints, I show you how to start exercising again with MyMTâą Fitness Foundations. In this module, you will discover:
- Why your exercise needs to be âenergizing, not exhaustingâ during menopause
- How to steadily build up your fitness levels with guidance on exercise frequency, intensity, type and timing.
- How to incorporate more movement into your normal daily activities.
- How to warm up for exercise to compensate for your lower oestrogen.
- How to monitor your exertion levels.
For a limited time, secure two modules for the price of one! Once you have reduced the inflammation in your joints, get back on track with your exercise with MyMTâą Fitness Foundations.
Educational webinars and action plans delivered straight to your inbox.Â
Watch online, in your own time, as many times as you wish.
Practical strategies that are easy to fit into your busy lifestyle.Â
A 6-week walking program, circuit program, posture guide and physio exercises
Reclaim your quality of life by taking charge
of your menopause journey
Joint and muscle pain during menopause isnât normal. Control the narrative of your menopause experience. My simple strategies will become part of your everyday life, and set you up for healthy aging by reducing inflammaging.
Don’t let your aching joints get you down!
Regain control with a step-by-step scientifically-evidenced plan.
