Frozen shoulder is a mysterious complaint. Properly termed adhesive capsultitis, frozen shoulder is an extremely painful condition in which it becomes gradually and increasingly difficult to move the shoulder joint. No one really understands why it occurs as it is not necessarily the result of an injury although it is more common in women and in people with heart disease or diabetes.

So what are the symptoms?

Well, each person may experience frozen shoulder in a unique way but generally it appears as severe and unrelenting pain which worsens at night. It can hinder your normal activities such as dressing, driving and sleeping. Sufferers often cannot raise their arm to a horizontal position or rotate their arm – hence the term frozen shoulder.  Bizarrely, the condition has three stages: freezing, frozen and thawing. The freezing stage can last between two and four months, is acutely painful and, as the name suggests, mobility gradually worsens. This is followed by the frozen stage which can last anywhere from four months to a year. Fortunately the pain decreases in this stage although the joint gets even stiffer. Finally, the joint begins to ‘thaw’ but this is a very slow process taking between one to three years. If untreated, it is likely that you will not regain 100 per cent of the range of motion that you had before the condition occurred.

Although we don’t know why frozen shoulder occurs we do have good knowledge of what is happening to the joint during this painful complaint. Your shoulder is a ball and socket joint surrounded by flexible tissue called a capsule. Frozen shoulder occurs when bands of scar tissue form in the capsule causing the tissue to thicken and swell. This leaves less space for your ball and socket joint to swivel smoothly around – causing you pain and stiffness when you try to move your arm.

 

So how can you avoid this nasty problem?

Because the direct cause is unknown there aren’t really any preventative steps: the best advice is to seek an early diagnosis if you suspect you may be developing frozen shoulder. The term frozen shoulder is often misused and there are many other conditions that cause pain in the shoulder, such as tendonitis, bursitis, referred pain from the neck, muscle damage and wear and tear. It is very important to make sure that your pain is accurately diagnosed as quickly as possible to avoid long-term or even permanent reduction of arm movement. There are some more serious problems that can also refer pain to the shoulder including inflammation of the gall bladder and heart problems.  Your chiropractically trained practitioner is trained to differentiate between all the different signs and symptoms and make an accurate diagnosis.

Your health practitioner will be able to diagnose frozen shoulder during your initial examination and they may use diagnostic imaging to rule out other conditions. The aim of treatment is to relieve pain, increase mobility, reduce the duration of the condition and to restore as much movement to the joint as possible during the ‘thawing’ stage. In addition to gentle adjustments and guided movements, at my clinic you would be taught rehabilitation exercises and given a tailored programme of home exercises. With frozen shoulder, the sooner you start work on it the better the outcome and in general we find that care speeds up recovery by a significant margin.