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Frozen shoulder - confused and desperate

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carrieph2
carrieph2

just posting in the hope that there might be something suggestions out there that might help.  Fell hard on head and right shoulder skiing in mid March.  Not investigated at the time as docs more concerned about the concussion and I was too groggy to mention it. Returned to UK. Big pain upper arm. Doc said nothing broken, take painkillers. Sports physio suspected torn bicep. In sling.  Over next few weeks pain shifted to shoulder and movement became limited. Asked GP for MRI - she said couldn't refer on NHS. So, went to private ortho on recommendation.  Immediately diagnosed FS, didn't need MRI and said an arthrogram with injection of steroids and air had 90% success. Had this done 2 1/2 wks ago.  Very painful procedure. Seems to have made it worse. Huge pain with some movements, nagging ache/pain all the time,  waves of significant pain for no apparent reason and many nights of little or no sleep. A lot of cramp like pain in my elbow now too. Slowly realising that this might not get better quickly and getting very depressed and slightly panicked about it.  Three teenage children and 2 businesses to run and I can feel the whole thing starting to fall apart.  any thoughts gratefully received.  

0 likes, 12 replies

12 Replies

  • gretchen70007
    gretchen70007 carrieph2

    Posted

    Hi Carrie! It is definitely scary and depressing sad Reaching out is so important in helping you realize there are others out there and eventually we WILL get through this!! Please check out the Facebook group " Frozen Shoulder Friends". There's a ton of active subscribers and everyone is at a different stage and someone is also willing to listen and offer advice!
    • carrieph2
      carrieph2 gretchen70007

      Posted

      Thanks Gretchen.  There are so many things in this forum that resonate. Quite apart from realising that there are people who understand the pain and how low it makes you feel - it's things like friends and colleagues thinking you're making a fuss about nothing - I've lost count of people sort of laughing at me because they think it's self inflicted because of the skiing accident.  Husband being supportive but difficult for him to really understand.  Feel my consultant seriously underplayed the possible results of the injection of steroids and air - made it sound like it was THE answer and I now know that's not the case.  Thanks for FB heads up.  Xx
  • gretchen70007
    gretchen70007 carrieph2

    Posted

    YES!! Everything you're saying is true, and I promise on the FB page you will immediately get a lot of people responding and reaching out when you comment- it has truly been a blessing! I found this forum first, but there's not a whole lot of people on here. No one understands this terrible situation unless you are actually living with it sad  It's unfortunately a condtion that is always changing, so you never quite know what to expect.
  • Guest
    Guest carrieph2

    Posted

    Hi Carrie,

    In USA I'm a discrimination fs victim because I'm male white blue eyes over six feet with full heading hair.

    Women apparently think they own the horror of fs but I'm very very male Paul Newman type and I have the godawful malady.

    Your suffering moved me.

    Aleve helps slightly. Ultimately I had to man up and grimace, lose lots of sleep, pray and go to lots of therapy.

    I had the injections...no help.

    You can have the MUA, I did not.

    I just suffered for about 8 hideous months.

    I still have fs but it's much better.

    You better either have MUA or get ready fir long year if pain.

    It will get a lot better in a year or so.

    I grinned and bore it.

    I re-read C.S.Lewis's book The Problem of Pain and as always c.s. Lewis helped! :-)

    ,best wishes stay . Strong, Bobby

    • carrieph2
      carrieph2 Guest

      Posted

      Thanks Bobby.  I think the way forward may be to just accept it and get on with finding the best way through.  Going to try and learn to meditate too I think. 
  • AntheaS
    AntheaS carrieph2

    Posted

    Hi Carrie...sorry to hear about your pain. Unfortunately, you are in the early FS stage of freezing. When I started my FS around September 2014(after a huge operation in June/July last year), I tried closing curtains and the pain would shoot down my arm. Within 3 months I would drop to the floor in agony and the pain could be felt in in my elbow, wrist and thumb. It is heaps better.  Although today my elbow throbbed for a couple of hours. Admittedly, things only started getting better when I accepted my FS fate and the pain. Every now and then I take a painkiller to catch up on some sleep, but generally I go pain meds free. I worried about the drug use on my body and found that I didn't get use to the pain, so when I went off the meds, I had a hard time adjusting to the pain.  I'm in the waiting phase I call it. I'm frozen now (still painful, but the pain is different). I can't scratch my back or undo my bra and can't lift my arm up to my shoulder. So I'm quit stiff. I'm not sure when to go for MUA. I'm afraid to aggrevate my shoulder, so I'm waiting...waiting for the right time. I'm still figuring out what the right time is. I've not gone for any injections or physio. I'm going the natural route with no intervention. A friend of mine who is in her late 60s had a frozen shoulder about 25 years ago and she waited until her body sorted it out. Lucky for her it did. I'm just worried that if I do things against my instincts,  I'll aggrevate it and then lengthen my recovery time. Am I doing the right thing? Well, I don't know. I'm going with my gut instinct. The specialists can't really give me an answer and they can't give me any guarantees. I was with the 'let's try this and this and that'group and that was unacceptable, not to mention painful and traumatic. I have accepted this condition and living with it. Things got so much better for me when I did this. The depression lifted and I have found ways of sleeping better..not fantastic, but better. How long do I have to toil? I wish I knew, but there are so many worse diseases that I could have gotten, so I am happy it's this and not say cancer. You are going to get good at doing pretty much everything with your other arm. You will find very little comfort from people who don't understand, but a lot of support from this forum. This is not an easy journey and there is no quick fix, but you will learn to endure. You will find that some days your FS seems better and true to my word the very next day the painful aching and throbbing is back. I wish your recovery to be a speedy one and keep in touch. One arm hug coming your way xxx
    • carrieph2
      carrieph2 AntheaS

      Posted

      Thanks Anthea.  I'm now quite cross that I was barged through the injection route by my consultant who made it seem so ordinary and 'everyone does it'.  Doesn't feel that way at all now. Wish I'd found this forum and Facebook sooner.  Anyway, we are where we are.  I'm such a 'doer' that I find this like torture.  But starting to feel that the best way through is probably acceptance.  I have today made an appointment with ortho that I should have seen in the first place (she was so booked up that first appt was in Mid June so saw someone else - mistake!) - seeing her now in mid July and will try massage and low impact stretches til then.  Trying to stay off painkillers too.  Don't like what they do to me.   
    • frozen_stiff
      frozen_stiff carrieph2

      Posted

      Hi Carrie,

      How did your recent visit to the new orthpaedic surgeon go and what did she advise?

  • vernice89097
    vernice89097 carrieph2

    Posted

    Morning

    never done this sort of thing before, but after yet another night of unrest and pain I clicked on to read other people's blogs.

    i to did my shoulder skiing. Took my eye off the ball on a stupidly gentle  slope and went over onto my left shoulder. I broke the bone at the top of my arm so was in a sling for 6 weeks before I could do any form of movement.

    having broken my right rotator cuff years ago I feared another frozen shoulder. Yes that is what has happened. Last time the nhs fannied around for 6 months, then decided I needed an Mri. Told me I could wait weeks or months. As soon as my husband said he would pay they booked me for the next day. Same scanner same hospital.

    anyway mua was the only way it was treated 12 ears ago, having had the injections which were less then useless. 

    £2000 later, it was sorted in theatre.

    it is a pain no alse can understand, it is life changing as normal things can not be done, like putting on certain items of clothing. Sleep, well that is a lottery if you can manage to get into a position that doesn't leave you in agony. I have had the physiology, not a lot of good, had the orthopedic Doctor yang it to a point of me screaming and nearly punching his lights out. Can't get to see a trauma specialist until the end of July.

    i will not be fobbed off as I have experienced this before . I will be insisting on an Mir and theatre ASAP or the likely hood is I will not be skiing next March.

    Do not let the specialists fob you off. They fanny around waiting time and nhs money. They're is the only way forward so push for it.

    good luck

    • frozen_stiff
      frozen_stiff vernice89097

      Posted

      Hi Vernice,

      Sorry you are having such a battle. You may have read my notes to carrie regarding her skiing acccident. Unfortunately it seems these days any shoulder that is stiff for any reason is called a frozen shoulder by physios, general practitioners and even orthopaedists. Physiotherapists should know better, they train for years it seems in order to enable them to help patients with musculoskeletal conditions. If you google med webs you will see that FS is a genetic condition and is not caused by trauma, or surjical operations. Much is made of medical conditions causing FS such as diabetes, thyroid, and heart attacks. As FS only happens between the ages of 40 to60 and the mentioned medical conditions come at any age it seems a fragile arguament. I was in the supermarket a few days ago and noticed that bones were on sale, some long bones and some complete joints, most likely cow bones. They were encased in plastic where the air had been sucked out and even if not frozen little or no movement was possible. I then googled joints and came up with osteoknematics and looked at human joint movements. The cow joint was restricted by the taught plastic and the human with the shrunken capsule. I could then see clearly why exercise should never begiven for frozen shoulder in the initial and intermediate phases. If we look at the elbow it is a hinge, flex and extend, easy. The shoulder quite different, several axes. If you exercise a shoulder joint, (the gleno humeral joint)and the capsule is taught and two things happen I envisage. One is the scapula creates the movement and the other you really aggravate the GH joint and creat more pain and more inflamation. So how can we restore movement so we can eventually exercise and do it cheaply and for nothing at home. And incidentally do it without aggravating the joint. As I don't have a restricted GH I am depending on the members of this forum to assist me in this medical experiment. So the shoulder joint has movements it can't itsself do but you can do to it to restore movement (I think and hope !) I made these up over the last day or so and I can feel the movements which are quite small but I think important I hope to restore GH movement.

      Sit in an armchair  placing the palm of the hand under the mid thigh so the arm is relatively fixed. Relax the arm completely and using the  muscles above the shoulder to lift the whole shoulder up. At the same time pinch the area at the front and back of the point of the shoulder with the  opposite  hand fingers. It may take a bit  of practice,you should feel a gap which proves a gliding movement is taking place. Measure carefully how far you can move your  range before you begin and see if amy improvement takes place. I would amagine a rhythmical movement would be beneficial. Try this exercise several times a day  a few minutes at a time and do less if it irritates. I am working on a couple more. So try this and tell me.

       

  • frozen_stiff
    frozen_stiff carrieph2

    Posted

    Hi Carrie, I'm not surprised you are confused and desparate, I'd be mad as heck and really annoyed. Back in the old days I was a soldier and my training was for winter warfare and I was a medical technician. My job to train and look after soldiers just younger than me and be out in the winter wildernes for a few weeks at a time. So I have had some        experience in upper body ski injuries. I should say I was in Palm Springs California a couple of days ago (116 in the shade!) and saw the bronze statue of Bono, late husband of Cher and one time Mayor of Palm Springs. You may remember he died skiing from a head injury. But I digress.

    So Carrie you landed on your shoulder and head. Which way was your head wrenched,towards or away from the impacted shoulder. Was it possible your arm pushed in front of you? The position of the fall often points to the lesion.

    So do you have a neck injury in addition to the shoulder, you must have had a full neuro exam from your docs to make sure you have no brachial plexus lesion. The nerves supplying the muscles from C4 to T1

    have to be examined.

    For the shoulder: The muscles can be torn the ligaments stretched and the capsule torn or and a bleed inside it. Also damage to the boney fibrous articulation wiith the scapula. Your Docs did I presume the obligatory 12 movements of the shoulder joint, active, passive and resisted. One thing we do know is you don't have a frozen shoulder.

    Frozen shoulders are not caused by trauma. They run in families and there are several conditions from the same gene group.

    Ask your initial practitioner for a suprascapular nerve block, easy to do,  this will remove the pain temporarily and make it more easy to see if the shoulder capsule is really tight.  It takes at least 45 minutes to do a full neuro musculetal examination for your condition,

    Just loved the line "Immediately diagnosed frozen shoulder".

    Let us know how you do.

  • sheri12
    sheri12 carrieph2

    Posted

    hi, I tried physio, deep tissue massage, stretching with some relief. One day I woke up with my shoulder completely frozen and in so much throbbing pain. I contacted an osteopath who tried stretching my arm out.  she refered me to a well reknown chiropractor in Canada who specializes in shock wave therapy.  I was desperate so I went. He has a three point program- yes, expensive and not covered- but you are an important investment. he was willing to give %10 off if paying for two sessions at a time. I'm on session 6 after the past 3 weeks.  $75 a time otherwise.  

    Sessions last about 15 minutes.  time breakdown consists of- 10 minutes of acupuncture, 5 minutes of intense shock wave therapy which is suppose to break down the scar tissue and encourage the area to start healing again- do not take an anti-inflamatory- and then manipulation and stretching.  First few appointments I was in so much pain.  I declined pain killers bc of the type of work I am in.  I found extra strength tylonel thank goodness worked and the topical Bell roll on pepper cream joint relief worked at night with heat.  I had to practice hanging my arm and swinging it and creeping my hand up a wall.  I could not do either as my arm felt stuck in several places.  Throbbing pain stopped and mild aching only.  Third and fourth session started to be able to reach my arm up and out.  Now on 6th, still some aching bc of some postural issues- almost full movement in arm.  Was recommended to take some joint lubricant - one type has shellfish so I couldn't take it bc of an allergy- I will start taking it tomorrow.  I was told to avoid a cortesone shot as it just masks problem and does not treat actual problem.  I am hoping that this therapy continues to be successful and is not as frequent. I would recommend the investment as it apparently cuts the recovery time in half and helps with the ability to unfreeze shoulder much sooner. I wanted to share bc I did not see much on this.  All the best.

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