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ASKMichelle King Robson, EmpowHER's founder, explains why she had joint pain after her hysterectomy.
Michelle King Robson:
After having my hysterectomy, I started experiencing joint pain. And I thought that that was, you know, something that I had maybe picked up something the wrong way, or I had exercised and I had hurt my knee, or I had maybe hit my elbow. And I didn’t realize it, but really what was happening to me was that the joint pain was traveling kind of all over my body.
So it would go from a finger into a knee, to an elbow, back to one of my hands, and it was constantly in motion, even my ankles. And I just thought, well, this is really odd because I have never really experienced anything like this before. And I thought, gosh, could I have the onset of rheumatoid arthritis, for example. I mean, I had no idea, but it would come and go. So it wasn’t consistent, and that’s what made me kind of think, hmmm, something’s not right here, and I just got to get to the bottom of this.
And what I discovered was, in my case, because I didn’t have enough estradiol in my system, I was getting joint pain, and for women, that’s what happens. They get joint pain, and it travels. It will go from one knee to another knee. It will go from a finger to a hand, to a wrist even, to an ankle. I mean, it can travel all over the body, and yet you’ll be diagnosed. And hips is also another area that I hear about a lot on the site.
It will go from area to area, and you don’t know what it is, and typically you’ll go in and they’ll say, “Take some ibuprofen; put some ice on it. Maybe you injured it somehow.” And really, that’s not what it is. It’s just that your hormones are not balanced and you don’t have enough of something in your system, and that’s what’s causing you to have the joint pain.
Once you get the balance back, the joint pain goes away. It’s amazing how it goes away. And now today, if I don’t do, for example, if I forget to switch my patch out, because I take an estradiol patch, I use one to balance my own estradiol. And when I don’t switch my patch out like I should, all of a sudden, I have that joint pain. It will be in one knee or another, and it instantly tells me, “Ah, you forgot to do this,” and it’s just a great reminder.
You will know your body so well, and actually we, as women, know our bodies so well already. We just aren’t tapping into it, and we’re just thinking, “Oh, you know, it’s got to be something else.” No, no, no – there’s something to this. If something is going on with you, there’s a reason why it is happening to you and you need to get to the doctor and you need to figure it out.
View More Videos On Hormones:
http://www.empowher.com/condition/hormones-endocrine-system
Add a Comment3 Comments
joint pain
December 29, 2010 - 7:48pmThis Comment
Hi. ill be 54years old this june25 Im a breast cancer survivor for 5years now and still taking tamoxifen and
June 21, 2010 - 2:55amwill stop tamoxifen according to my oncologist by Dec 15, 2010, i also have Hypertension, controlled diabetes
and osteoporosis, what i hate most is my back lower pain. Im taking daily calcium, and once a month ibandronate bonviva, im also taking metformin and atenolol. At least im doing a 3x a week stretching for 30 mins only. Im also having my every 6months check up. My bonedense result last week was negative from osteoporosis, but still the pain in my lower back occur. Im a filipina from Philippines, hope you can share to me other ways or hope to gain more health knowledge with this group
thankyou and more power.
Hi Titabeth
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June 21, 2010 - 3:54pm