Frozen Shoulder

Sorry you have a Frozen Shoulder too. Be careful with PT while you are in pain, Four months of PT made my FS worse by trying to “push through the pain.” We are all different, so listen to what your body tells you. My Orthopetic doc. was upset that my family doc even put me into PT while in the painful stage. 

I am two years into a Frozen Shoulder. I can tell you that the FS goes away as slowly as it comes on. If you have Diabetes, FS can last up to five years. You will learn how to work around the shoulder issue. I am still in pain, but it is less. 

OK, so I have tried everything under the sun for my FS. What worked for me:

1. Hot baths with about four cups of Epsom salts and drape a wet towel over the shoulder. This aside from

pain pill-Norco- 10, the baths were and are pretty much my only source of relief, especially when the pain is really intense.

2. Massage. I found someone who does VERY light stretching with my arm and massages around my FS to relax the muscles. This is helped tremendously. If the rest of the body is a little more relaxed, your body isn’t in a constant state of “guarding your FS”.  Plus, it does help with the pain a little. 

3. Be very careful with PT.  while you are in still in the painful stage. As you can read by the old posts, ALL of our doctors have given us different directions on our FS. I learned to follow my own intuition and do what my body tells me to do. (Also, do research on that surgery before you agree to it. It helps some, but can also damage nerves or someone I know had their tendon torn. Just be your own advocate for your health.) Good luck.

HI Vicky

I completely sympathise with your situation, I too have experienced everything that you are going through, it’s really difficult for people around you to comprehend just how bad the pain is and how dibilitating the condition itself is, I hope I can offer  you some light though, I have had a frozen shoulder for just over 9 months now, until I was officially diagnosed I found PT excruciating and like you I was experiencing pain all the way to my finger tips, I had to stop as it was too much and no help. Once I had my official diagnosis I was advised by the orthopedic surgeon that I saw to avoid PT until after I had an intervention to help speed up the thawing stage of FS.

I live in the UK , I was advised that hydrodilatation was a preferred method of treatment prior to surgical intervention, I had this procedure done on the 10th November , I was a little disappointed in the first instance as I think my expectations for early movement and some sort of pain relief where a little higher than the reality of what I got,  however after 1 week I was referred to an nhs Physio whom I see twice weekly now, I have been advised to buy a pulley for home which was only £6 from Amazon, the progress has been slow and very painful but it is no longer a persistent pain, I have also enlisted the help of  a private Physio who performs acupuncture as part of his therapy, this has been fantastic !!! 

So for me 3 times weekly Physio combined with the accupuncture and constant excercises at home, both with the pulley and without have given me back not only my sanity but some pain relief, don’t get me wrong it is still quite difficult to perform the varied excercises and stretches, that’s due to a combination of pain on movement but the stiffness too, I thought the hydrodilatation was going to be a quick fix if I’m honest but I have very quickly learned that it remains a up hill battle after the procedure , I am however  now able to dress and undress myself, cut up food, wash my own hair and do varied other things without too much pain, I can raise my arm forward over 90 degrees which I have been unable to do for months, there are certain movements I am struggling with but I’m determined Vicky to keep at it, my husband and children all say they can already see a massive change in me.

I can only say, stay positive, keep your chin up , there certainly is light at the end of the tunnel for me and I really hope you get the help you need soon, good luck.

Hi Vicki. I’ve had mine for about 10 months and have tried everything as well from pain pills, using an arp wave machine at the chiropractor’s office to a medical massage. I have recently started going to another chiropractor and he is using a laser to get the inflammation down I have only gone once but will go again Monday. That chiropractor told me about a chiropractor out of Texas that he saw on you tube that specializes in frozen shoulder. I tried finding him and I believe his name is Jeff Echols? I’m going to ask my chiropractor Monday if that’s the same guy he was talking about? Watching him on YouTube give me hope. Look him up! I have also recently started taking CBD oil and using a vape with CBD oil in it while I’m at work. I use the tincture about an hour before going to bed so I can sleep with little to no pain and I use the vape at work because it takes the edge off the pain. I manage a restaurant so I work a lot! Keep me posted on how your’s is going and I’ll do the same! 

Hi Vicki90704, 

How are you doing? I can so relate to much of what you are going through; the constant pain, with pain down to your fingers. My initial symptoms began with pain when reaching for a coffee cup, then just holding a coffee cup, then taking a shower (reaching with my dominant arm) became impossible and shaving the dominant arm is a joke now! I still try but it's not pretty. My PT also said I have the worse case of FS they've ever seen and my Ortho said my case is very severe, however, I am able to cut my food, albeit with pain. Ice is my best friend now. I have so many ice packs in my freezer & I can't sleep w/o them. So, I've been dealing with this for almost 14months now but in severe pain and loss of most of ROM for 5 months. I've tried cortisone injection (useless), PT, dry needling and Hydrodilation (which was extremely painful for me.) The Hydrodilation gave me a few months of pain relief and 20% ROM increase with PT so that may be something you want to talk to your Ortho about? Right now I'm contemplating on whether to repeat the Hydro or go for the MUA and arthroscopic capsular release. Do you have a TENS unit? I use that a lot along with the ice pack to help cut down on the intensity of the pain (no it obviously doesn't get rid of the pain it's so bad.) Believe me, I have been depressed, unable to dress my self, up all night unable to sleep crying because of this pain. You're not alone. I don't have the answers, but hope that knowing some of us understand helps. Wishing you all the best. Sorry for rambling, but I only had 2 hours of sleep and I'm in a ton of pain.