Second shoulder playing up. Help

Hi, i had exactly your problems a few years ago. The left shoulder went first, excruciating pain followed by a frozen shoulder. After about 14 months the shoulder recovered and within a couple of months my right shoulder started with the same symptoms. All i did was physiotherapy and acupuncture. It took another year to get back to normal. I was told at the time that it is quite common to have one shoulder going after the other.

PT didn't help for me..but for whatever reason it helps for some people. Unfortunately I also got frozen shoulder in my second one. I'm on just over 2 years with this unbelievable pain. My theory is to try everything as soon as possible. i found that acupuncture worked the best for me. Since I had been going regularly, it did take a while for it to help my first frozen shoulder but when the second one started hurting I told her right away and she worked on both which is why i believe the second one has improved much faster. Still painful when i move it in certain ways but nothing like the first one. Good luck. It's a nightmare!

Hi Colin1964 -

I too had FS in my right shoulder, and then got it in my left. The right shoulder took 12 months to heal. A month later the left started. I'm 16 months into my left FS and its about 85% healed. I don't know why it's taken so much longer to heal the second one, other than I'm a few years older. They say you have a 50% chance of getting it in the other shoulder once you've had it in one. Only someone who has had this condition knows how horrible it is, so I literally feel your pain. The good news is it is very rare for it to come back in the same shoulder. So, once you heal from both, you're relatively safe for it not to reoccur. I would suggest reading the message boards for any and all info you can find on it. The problem with this condition is what works for one person does not necessarily work for another.

Good luck and stay strong. It will eventually pass.

hi i feel ur pain i have had 2 f s within a year of each other first time round i spent £1000 getting injections private pysio massages etc but nothing helped , so this time i took a different approach and someone suggested refexolgy she was able to tell me she felt a big knot in my shoulder after3 treatments my pain had eased so much

Hi colin

i hVe been suffering with frozen shoulder in both arms for the last 18 months. Iam a home carer for the elderly. I had it in my left first then while being treated around 3/4 months developed it in my right as well. At first the dr. said no your just over doing it by not using the affected arm. but then the stiffness came too. now beacuse i had it in both and as you can image very resyricted in what i could manage to do for myself. But still managed to do pc for clients, just. My specialist suggested surgery to help release at least one shoulder. now 12 months on from surgery to the right shoulder and intense physio done on both. if i had the choice again i wouldnt have the surgery aloough at the time i just wanted something to work. as i had tried hydrodilation etc which offered me no relief. Once past the pain stage , physio on both shoulders even though one was realeased they are just about at the same range of motion. But unfortnately when working my shoulder which i has surgery on gives me pain still.

This is just my view on surgery after being able to compare surgery verus no surgery. I think physio and gym work has been of best benefit to me. Although the abduction range is less in non surgery arm. Hope this helps you and any other poor person going thru this terrible painfull and limitating condition.

I'm just getting over my second Frozen shoulder.For both of them, I would get referred pain in the other. I suspect that as my body compensated for the un-natural position I held my FS arm for so long, the other shoulder would get fatigued and the muscles would spasm. I got a lot of gentle massages, and those really, really helped. Not the stretchy painful ones that the dominatrix - I mean- Physical Therapist does. During the worst part, I was having a massage on both shoulders every week. Good luck. Take heart in that it's unlikely that you're getting it in the other shoulder. Possible, yes, but most likely referred pain.