Frozen Shoulder

14 months ago, the fates fingered me as the lucky recipient of a bad case of frozen shoulder- AKA: Adhesive Capsulitis.
It's the most frustrating and painfully ouchy thing I've ever experienced. I have a very high level of pain tolerance, but the mere act of swinging my arm during a normal walking gait would cause a bolt of pain and drop me into a blubbering mass of misery. Needless to say, chicken winging up an OW was outta the question.
About two months ago, my shoulder started to thaw out and I am regaining movement. The pain is substantially less.
Has anyone gone through a frozen shoulder before?
Have you regained a normal range of motion?
Does the pain ever fully go away?

I spent a lot of time doing physical therapy after getting my knee fixed twice, and I saw lots of shoulder rehabs. The problem with shoulders is that if you don't move them, they freeze. You really need to regain your range of motion and strength the joint. If you haven't gone to an orthopedic and done some PT, you really, really need to. If you ignore it, it could become chronic.

Yep -- had a bad one about a year ago. I finally got my range of motion back via PT, and then have been religious about lifting weights 2-3 times/week. You gotta get it moving and keep it moving (with some strengthening thrown in).

It worked for me -- no more pain.

Yes. Mine is over a year and a half old, and now there is some light at the end of the tunnel. I sought help a little over year ago and started PT. It got worse... way worse. Turned out I was getting the wrong PT. I left my original ortho and PT and moved on. After 9 months of PT prescribed by ortho #2, got the OK for surgery. Then, bless their hearts, Humana dropped my surgeon as an in network provider. Actually a blessing in disguise. He was a little old school and Surgeon #3, Millet at Steadman Hawkins had a much more progressive attitude towards how to fix it. Millet did a capsular release, bicep tendonesis and sub-acromial decompression. It has not been easy post op, but now almost 4 months later I have very close to full ROM, and am just starting to regain a little strength. I can lift my arm overhead again, and am curling 8 pounds with my bicep. Seems I still have some significant tendonitis, and the partial rotator cuff tear that was not fixed surgically leaves me having to work that much harder to regain any significant strength. The MRI over a year ago showed a complete rotator cuff tear, but when they got in there, they found it was partial and the biggest problem was all the crab meat scar tissue and adhesions in the joint capsule, and the bicep tendon. Now my tendon is reattached at a different location on my humerus instead of the glenoid of the scapula. It seems to be a very common procedure these days. Almost everyone who had shoulder surgery I have seen at the PT had the same.

Frozen shoulder to this degree is misery and it is long term. I really question whether my shoulder will ever come back 100% even with all the PT and surgery. Time will tell.

This has been the season of the shoulder on MP. I've seen a lot of posts about shoulder injuries lately. Yea sometimes you need surgery, but it is expensive, painful and there is no guarantee that it will work.

How about you go see a Chiropractor? I am a chiro student and work in a chiro clinic. We see "frozen shoulders" all the time - esp. with a big winter. Like any profession - mechanics, lawyers, PT's, whoever - you need to hook up with professionals who are at the top of their game, not just your average slob or scam artist.

What you want is a Chiropractor skilled in what is called Applied Kinesiology. Find a doctor hear icakusa.com/find-a-doctor/. You need to find out what the problem is and the best way to do that is to ask the body. If you know what you are doing, the body will tell you what it needs to get better. Good luck.

I was diagnosed with Frozen Shoulder last year. The pain was so great at night that I couldn't sleep. My doctor refused to give me any pain medications telling me that anything he could give me that would help the excruciating pain would be addictive. For about three months, I slept about 2 hours a night at best.

After about four months, the pain started to subside and after an additional two months I was probably 95%. All is OK now. Luckily, I did not need any PT, drugs or extensive rehab. Having said that, the first three months were brutal. YMMV.

Best of luck,

Bruce

I had originally been misdiagnosed as having tendinitis and started a PT regime for such. Things got so bad after 6 weeks that I couldn't take it anymore and was referred to an ortho. He knew what was going on the moment he did an exam.
He suggested that I have a "Manual Release". i.e. They knock me out with general anesthesia and then wrench my arm in every possible direction, thereby ripping all of the offending adhesions loose.
Sounded kinda Neanderthal to me, especially the caveat that stated there would be a possibility of bones being broken during the procedure.
I decided to pass.
In spite of the intense pain, I started moving and stretching and things have started to thaw out. With in the last few weeks I've been able to do push-ups and even get in a couple of chin-ups. The best part is that the twisting-knife-in-the-shoulder-pain is gone and it's down to a dull throb now. Even have occasional pain-free moments.
Hearing from climbers who have been down the frozen shoulder road is reassuring.
Thanks for sharing your experiences.

One of the reasons besides the insurance dropping McCarty that I moved on to Steadman Hawkins and Dr Millet was that McCarty thought manipulation under anesthesia to be a pretty good option, but Millet also thought it was neanderthal and not worth the risk without removing the mass of scar tissue I had built up. Millet also wanted it moving right after surgery and McCarty wanted it immobilized for 6 weeks post op prior to going for full range of motion. Just seemed McCarty is a bit old school in approach to treatment. Millet seems much more up to date in terns of treatment options. based on this experience I think it is definitely worth shopping around for care.

Glad to hear you are feeling good progress! whether it is luck or the right treatment, you are very lucky to be able to do a pull up so soon. My arm would not extend above shoulder level for 11 months until surgery. The day of surgery the PT moved it through full range. Then the post op swelling set in. Now 4 months later I am starting to be able to hang at full extension, but a pull up is probably still several months away.

By the way, though it may work for the long term, surgery sucks short term. My emaciated arm post op by about 10 days:

I have helped treat two frozen shoulders. They take a lot of diligence and, often, a long period of time to fully rehabilitate. To not be absolutely diligent in working on the range of motion on a consistent basis will easily set you back. The road to recovery can also be painful.

Rostecrux wrote:What you want is a Chiropractor skilled in what is called Applied Kinesiology. You need to find out what the problem is and the best way to do that is to ask the body.

The only other thing I wanted to point out is that applied kinesiology has virtually zero good quality scientific research behind it and it has not been shown to be effective for the diagnosis or treatment of any disease. (This, after comprehensive review of studies by organizations such as the faculty of Harvard Medical School)

I wonder if Dry Needling would be beneficial.

My shoulder issues began in July 2009 with an injury to my left shoulder. Unrelenting pain led to surgery for a SLAP repair. Months of PT with decreasing movement and increasing pain. I opted for the manipulation and have been improving rapidly with increasing strength and movement. Unfortunately, I tore my rotator cuff in the right arm and had that repaired 6 weeks ago. All is going really well with the right arm and I hope to be back climbing in a few weeks. The stretching is brutal but I am highly motivated to get back on some rock. It's been a long haul and I have spent a lot of time on MP finding climbs I want to do. Thanks to all for your posts. They have helped ease the boredom of almost 5 months in a sling since last April.

Thawing out this old post from 2011.  My wife is struggling with a painful case of frozen shoulder.   She has about 60% range of motion and is in pain with movement and when she tries to sleep.  She has tried weekly PT, been diligent about her prescribed conditioning and stretching.  A few sessions of dry needling has helped her reduce the pain but no improvement in range of motion.  She is pretty miserable and I am wondering what else we can try.  

We have found the Trigenics Frozen Shoulder Clinic online which claims to have a novel method of restoring ROM in one session using a novel technique called the OAT procedure.  They have two locations in Toronto or Estonia.  Probably expensive and not covered by our insurance.  Does anyone have experience with them?  Are there other methods we should try?  Our Ortho & PTs say that its a waiting game for the joint to magically thaw and then move on to the next course of treatment.  Should we just be patient?  Should we demand an MRI?  Thanks for your thoughts and suggestions.

I'm not a doc. This is purely anecdotal, and not to be taken as the basis for a course of action.

I got it when I was in my late 40's, which I thought was unfair b/c it's sometimes referred to as "50-year-old shoulder." Got a shot of a strong nsaid in the er, then went to an ortho who gave me a shot of cortizone, and the pain went away. I was conservative w/ it for a few weeks and it sort of resolved itself. No problems since.