Hello team!

@Amanda Graham I thought I might respond to your question here before we dive into the Peri Course as a whole.

We had a conversation about frozen shoulder and Peri age clients and what the hell to do with them to support them but also sort the frozen shoulder which can be super tricky and stubborn.

I saw this study yesterday which prompted me to pop this in as a separate conversation https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39947440/

This is looking at the role of oestrogen in experiences of frozen shoulder in women in Peri- Menopause age bracket.

Whilst Oestrogen therapy or MHT might be a treatment option or a bonus helpful by product for women already thinking about MHT/HRT From a TCM perspective this relates to Liver & Kidney Yin Xu with heat rising lodging in the upper jiao and most certainly drying out the sinews and tendons creating inflammation.

One of the reasons Frozen shoulder can be so stubborn is that there may have been an external trigger for the "injury" such as straining at the gym or gardening or other manual labour but it is almost always as a by product of internal consumption of fluids and yin through over work/ stress/ life etc (I'm sure you'll all relate :) )

Depending on your style of treatment local shoulder points are helpful I love throwing Ondan (needle head moxa) at almost everything :) Large Intestine 15 San Jiao 14 for example. You might use distal points via Tan Balance or Tung. But to treat the root cause at the same time it's necessary to address the clients constitutional presentation. So you might find it's clear cut yin xu or there might be Liver Blood Xu , the heat might also be present in the stomach with heart burn or anxiety or a number of other correlations. Happy to chat cases in this thread and when we run through the Peri Class.

I also had a client present in student clinic recently with "Cortisol Tendinopathy" (this link is randomly chosen but breaks it down nicely) https://www.jomartinosteopathy.com.au/resources/2025/3/8/chronic-raised-cortisol-and-connective-tissue-breakdown-understanding-the-link#:~:text=Tendons%20and%20ligaments%20rely%20on,Stress%20Management%20Techniques

which relates to the presence of high cortisol levels in people under high stress and how it effects the breakdown of collagen and joint integrity. Again from our perspective this is about the exhaustion of the Kidney energy (and adrenals) so Kidney Yin and Yang. I'm sure we can all think of a very stressed out client that has come in with tight and inflamed shoulders, whether it was technically frozen shoulder or not.

Lots here to chat about!

KK