Frozen shoulder - choices of treatment

Jeez your telling me. Many times I have ended up on the floor in tears completely unable to move. I have got an appointment at Wrightington Hospital in Lancashire and fingers crossed it will be as successfull as yours, Christine T52. I think I just needed a bit of reassurance from someone who has had the proceedure. Thanks for your reply.

Good luck mymaude - I went searching for an online forum because I wanted to share my experience of Hydrodilitation in the hope that it will mean that someone won't have to go through the pain I had to with my first shoulder. Hopefully you won't have to wait to long for the treatment. I ended up paying for mine so that I could get it done within a week of seeing the specialist. Money well spent if it is financially possible.

Thanks for that. Will post progress.

THANK YOU for sharing the info about hydrodilation, I'm sure others will be pleased to know that finally there is another option available. Anybody who has had FS lives in fear of it returning but it helps to know that something may help. I do vaguely remember reading that there was a potential new treatment in the pipeline but it wasn't available to me at the time. I will certainly come back to this page to remind me what to ask for should I ever need it in future.

Good luck with your treatments.

I has my steroid injection into the joint capsule itself 10 days ago (as opposed to 2 previous injections into tendon for impingement syndrome) and it has had absolutely no effect.

Have reverted to physio to try to keep as much mobility as I can.

I'm going to see consultant in a weeks time and will definitely raise the possibility of hydrodilation as it seems to have very limited downsides (apart from the risks of any injection) and I'm willing to try anything at this point. My only worry is that as I've just had a steroid injection they'll have to do the procedure without it as I'll have had 4 in 6 months.

Good luck everybody and thank you for all info. Will definately post more when procedure is done.

Hi Everyone,

I saw my ortho doctor on Jan. 10 and he told me that I have a really stubborn case of FS. He said that they have thrown everything in their arsenal at me and it hasn't really worked. He did manage to talk me into another cortisone shot. This one he injected into the bursa. It hurt like hell going in, but right after I could move my arm considerably easier. This is the fourth cortisone shot in 5 months. Between the shot and me quitting physical therapy, my shoulder is feeling better. Still far from well, but at least I can live my life somewhat normally now. I still have pain, mostly trigger point pain, but it's bearable. I am still doing two excersizes every day at home. One is the pulley that goes over the door and lifts my arm. The other is the crawl up the wall. I am probably at about 80% overhead range of motion. I have noticed that with my arm not hurting so bad, I use it more to do little things like putting the milk in the refrigerator and putting dishes up etc.

I guess I'm in this for the long haul. I believe I have moved on to the frozen stage since I am not in the extreme pain anymore. Bumping my shoulder doesn't bring me to my knees anymore. Hopefully this stage will progress faster than the freezing stage. It is a huge relief that the horrible pain seems to be gone now.

Hope you all find what works best for you.

Hi,

Just one question to the ones that already had a frozen shoulder in the past. How did you feel when your shoulder started thawing???Did you have any pain, did it feel numb, how exactly did it feel?

My left shoulder (worst) stopped hurting after the arthrogram, but I didn't get any range of motion back. It released on its own one night by twitching. After that I had 95% range in all directions with only stiffness at the top. My right shoulder was less obvious going through the stages. The pain never got near as bad with it. I have about 75% range back but it still hurts to go to that point so I guess it's still thawing. There is no drop to the floor pain even if I bump it. The pain is more like that of a bad pulled muscle and stiffness. Clearly no one experiences this condition the same.

Hi Judith. I didn't actually thaw naturally with either of my frozen shoulders. With the first one I eventually saw a consultant (privately) who gave me a cortisone injection into (what I think must have been) the capsule. He told me I would either feel some relief immediately or it would make no difference; I felt some relief immediately. He also referred me to a fantastic physiotherapist and I had manipulation and ultrasound two or three times a week at first. This dropped to once a week eventually until I finally had full movement back. This probably took two months following the injection and he also prescribed an anti inflammatory tablet which I took once a day. I'm not sure now whether my shoulder was naturally beginning to thaw and I was just lucky enough to start treatment at exactly the right moment. With the second FS (opposite side) the pain was far greater during the freezing-up and frozen stage. I finally had the MUA around 8 months from the start of my problems. Again I was very lucky with my follow-up physiotherapy which was very hands on. I was also religious about following the exercise programme and using the pulley to raise my arm to maintain the movement produced by the manipulation operation. My recovery progressed quite quickly in so far as I got a lot of movement back pretty quickly. However, it took a full five months for my arm and shoulder to feel reasonably normal. It had been unusable for so long that the muscles were in poor shape and I had a lot of trigger point pain. The devastating pain I had experienced with any jolting of my arm or shoulder disappeared after the MUA though and that was a blessing. I hope that helps. However, as mentioned by Heather I'm not sure that everyone has the same experience and a treatment which has been effective for some people doesn't necessarily work on someone else.

Two days ago I had Hydrodilitation on my right shoulder. I would love to be able to report all good things but all did not go to plan. Unfortunately in the morning I knocked my arm badly - you all know how that feels - and was in considerable pain when I went in. The local anaesthetic injections were tolerable as was the insertion af the Hydro needle. The dye going in was tolerable and so too was the start of the Hydro itself. What followed can only be described as hell. I presume it was the adhesions tearing away from the bone but the pain was intollerable and after 3 attempts the radiographer abandoned the proceedure. I had researched this alot and Knew it was not going to be easy but this took my breath away. I know we all react differently to these proceedures but this was not quite what I expected. After about 10 mins I recovered enough to sit up and to my great surprise was able to actually move my arm more. In the last 2 days I have been streching gently and have to tell you that I can get dressed without screaming for the 1st time in 5 months and although it aches still I had a reasonable nights sleep last night. I have physio on tuesday so we`ll see how we go. If I have to do it again...................I dont think so, might just let it ride. Good luck everyone.

Hi Jana,

So if you has the bursa injected and the pain became less and the ROM increased can we assume you never had a frozen shoulder in the first place?

Judy b,

You say "I'm not sure whether my shoulder was naturally beginning to thaw and I was just lucky enough

to start treatment at the right moment. You are I'm sure exactly right! If I were a dctor physio chiro osteo or massage person I would like patient to arrive at about 8 months after onset and hear from the patient that they were beginning to be able to sleep even for a short tome on the affected side.

On reading the different discussions on this condition it is beginning to be apparent that any shoulder condition is FS which is why so many take so long to rid themselves of pain.

Hi James, I'm not sure what your point is. I realise that the term 'frozen shoulder' is used pretty loosely but this discussion group is to share experiences and thereby possibly make sufferers realise that they aren't alone in their misery - for that is what a true frozen shoulder surely is! There is a pattern to this condition but because it doesn't seem possible to predict how long the phases will last it seems to be difficult for doctors to decide how and when to treat it. If you are an expert perhaps you could share it with us?

Hi James, I don't know why you would assume that I never had a frozen shoulder. The cortisone injection did exactly what it was supposed to do. It helped alleviate the inflammation and therefore I got more ROM in the shoulder. However, this only lasted about four weeks. Then the pain came back as well as I lost some of the ROM.

I was diagnosed with adhesive capsulitis by an orthopedic surgeon who looked at X-rays of my shoulder and checked my ROM at my initial appointment. That was last July. I had arthroscopic capsular release surgery the end of October followed with aggressive PT for the next two months. First month of PT was great. I thought I was going to be done with this thing in a couple of months. Second month of PT I started to go downhill with the pain and ROM.

Went to a second Ortho surgeon for a second opinion. He sent me for an MRI the end of the year. MRI confirmed adhesive capsulitis. It showed the thickening of the lining around the joint. I have NEVER had an injury to my shoulder.

I believe that "Frozen Shoulder" is diagnosed incorrectly more often than we think. However, I have no doubt that this is what I have. I believe I had my surgery too early in my shoulder. If I had it do over again, I would have waited it out a few more months and lived through the pain. If after that time, it still was extremely painful, I would have the surgery. At the time, I would have done anything to make the pain stop though.