Menopause and leg pain: a delicate moment to face with your head held high
Menopause confronts us with a new dimension of our body and our femininity. In this natural phase of life, the woman faces a series of changes that can bring discomfort, pain and minor inconveniences. One of them is leg pain. Watch the video and discover a simple Pilates workout aimed at lower legs able to give elasticity and mobility to your legs.
- · Menopause and leg pain: the causes
- · Menopause and leg pains: various ailments and discomforts
- · Menopause and leg pain: contributing causes and remedies
50-year-olds may experience pain in the leg muscles, joints and bones in general. This suffering often coincides with the period of menopause. Walking, wearing shoes with heels, sitting for a long time, premenopausal or menopausal women experience various aches and strange joint and muscle pains never experienced before, especially in the knees and ankles, often frequent and attributable to various causes. Let's see which ones.
Menopause and leg pain: the causes
In the period of menopause, the hormonal imbalance acts negatively on various sectors of the muscular and bone system, causing pain and cramps. During this period, the woman often experiences pain in the bones and muscles, similar to those of a flu, especially if you have always led a very sedentary life and practiced little physical activity. When hormones are balanced, on the other hand, they hydrate the ligaments, cartilages, muscle fibers and bones, all components of the muscular and skeletal system. This action decreases with the disappearance of the cycle, generating often painful inflammations. Added to this is the decrease in estrogen which makes muscles and skin elastic, facilitating the production of collagen. And this determines in addition to wrinkles on the face also a lower yield of the elasticity of the muscle fibers.
Menopause and leg pains: various ailments and discomfort
Androgens, other hormones, also stimulate muscle formation. Their decrease in menopause can cause muscle pain. Muscle mass, once androgens are reduced, is reduced, and the subject feels the muscles not toned and without strength. The pains in the legs are felt more and more often, sometimes they are almost continuous, as the limbs are always under load, having to carry the weight of the whole body. Even after sitting for a long time, women in menopause feel their legs asleep and often struggle to get up due to pain, also due to arthrosis, joint problems, lymphedema due to poor lymph drainage and venous or arterial problems. Not all women, however, when they no longer have their menstrual cycle and their period ends of fertility, suffer from the same symptoms. C "are those who go into menopause later in life, who had a" high amount of estrogen and, therefore, accuse these menopausal disorders later than other women, have no deep wrinkles precocious, even if sooner or later these annoyances and these pains make their appearance anyway. There are those in menopause who have hot flashes and those who have never tried them in their life, those who suffer from water retention, sweats one, swelling and a sense of heaviness in the legs, ankles and feet and those with good lymphatic drainage, those with vaginal dryness and problems in sexual intercourse due to lack of lubrication with a feeling of pain and those who speak of greater serenity and tranquility of the sex over 50, perhaps also because she is not fertile, she no longer has to be forced to use contraceptive methods.
Menopause and leg pain: contributing causes and remedies
The same is true for the pains of the muscular or osteo-articular system which can also be consequences of personal anamnesis, clinical history, but also of one's life, for example having practiced competitive sport, having congenital problems with posture, having suffered injuries with injuries or fractures. Other factors should also be considered such as weight, sedentary lifestyle, poor exercise habits, smoking, loss of immunity due to stress or medicines, poor eating habits. With these contributing causes the pains increase. However, hormonal decline is always one of the main causes of these pains. the main. To curb weight gain in menopause, do soft gymnastics or play sports that are not too strenuous, walk a lot, eat less fatty, antioxidant and calcium-containing foods, try to be always active, take vitamin D to protect the bones from osteoporosis .
In short, we must make sure to reduce the damage that menopause can bring to the woman's body as well as to her mental state. First of all it is necessary to consult a gynecologist, to understand if it is appropriate to follow a hormone replacement therapy, even if this choice usually raises perplexity and fear of serious side effects. Furthermore, it is good to consume foods rich in vitamin C, such as citrus fruits, fruits reds, tomatoes, cabbage, cabbage and peppers, to stimulate the production of collagen. It is necessary to take the daily amount of proteins necessary for your body, not giving up meat entirely, but supplementing its limited consumption with legumes and protein vegetables. Iron prevents pain in bones and joints, as it oxygenates the tissues and facilitates their regeneration, strengthens the immune system, thus reducing the risk of sepsis and inflammation. The presence of iron in the blood is very important and often many women are deficient in it and suffer from iron deficiency anemia due to having suffered painful and too abundant cycles at childbearing age, real bleeding. Osteoarthritis is also a degenerative disease that afflicts many women after menopause and especially after the age of 65.
