Probable Frozen Shoulder - Is moving your arm beyond it's comport zone good or bad?

I am so uncomfortable moving my arm beyond the comfort zone I don't.  When I do a sudden jerk of the shoulder it is excruciating so I am very careful not to do that.  I saw an ortho surgeon and he immediately suggested arthroscopic surgery which I thought was a bit overboard.  I did ask him though that when I do make that sudden movement and I am in major pain, did I make matters worse, he said no.  

I've had frozen shoulder for 10 months now. I'm in the frozen stage now. I was in the freezing stage for  about 4 months. During that time I had PT called Airrosti. It a very intense PT where they manuipulate the injured area. To say it was painful would be an understatement! It definitely pushed my shoulder past it's comfort zone. I would go home from PT and feel queasy, extremely sore and very tired for the next day and a half... only to go back and do it all again a couple days later! I did this for 2 months. I saw zero improvement. I finally went to a new Orthopedist and he told me to not do anything to my shoulder while I was freezing and also during the frozen stage. He said once its starts thawing I'd do some PT to gain my muscle mass back in the shoulder/arm. He said doing the PT during the freezing/frozen stages won't hurt it but it won't help it either. Like Debbie posted, during the freezing stage I was not able to do anything with my frozen shoulder beyond 15 degrees without excruciating pain! I'd literally fall to my knees gasping for air if I even accidently bumped it or jerked it. It was awful! I feel for you. You're in the worst phase at this point. It will get better but time is the only thing that I think works, so trying to move your shoulder beyond what's comfortable really isn't going to help... but it also won't hurt it either. Hang in there!

Hi Louise.  I too was confused whether or not to move my shoulder beyond my comfort zone when I first hurt my shoulder back in October 2017. I fell going up a staircase and thus I thought I had pulled my shoulder and made my own decision to lay off my normal gym activities and to avoid any painful motion until it felt better. For me that was the wrong thing to do because that it was caused my frozen shoulder. After increasing pain and not being able to sleep at night and noticing that nothing I took reduced the pain I ended up seeing an ortho in January 2018 and have been in physical therapy ever since. It's been almost 4 full months of PT and I have gotten back about 80% of my ROM but it's been a painful experience. My therapist manually stretches my shoulder (without pain killers) each session (2-3 a week) and the home exercises I was given involve stretching to regain my internal and external rotation. When I first started PT my therapist told me right out, you have be able to suck up some of the pain and tolerate as much as you possibly can for this to work.  Today I am longer a candidate for MUA but it will still take a few more months before I'm 100%. My advise to you and anyone else is that if you think you hurt yourself (in this case your shoulder) get it checked out as soon as you can so you will know the extent of your injury and what to do. I thought I had pulled my shoulder but after seeing the ortho and going for an MRI I learned that I tore my labrum which would not have caused the amount of pain I suffered with the frozen shoulder. In my case, I learned that I should have checked it out a lot sooner and started physical therapy months ago. If you find that you do have a frozen shoulder and need a physical therapist make sure you get a good one - someone with experience and success in treating a frozen shoulder without surgery. My ortho even told me that if therapy doesn't hurt it likely won't work.