I joined this forum maybe 6 months ago and at that time, I had been suffering with frozen shoulder (small tear in rotator cuff which some think caused the fs - others think I had the fs anyway) for 6 months and I had seen......2 orthro surgeons, massage therapist, acupuncturist, physical therapists....had a MRI, used TENS unit at home and had 6 different ointments.creams for numbing. What I finally did was....nothing. I let nature take its course. No one could agree on anything. One surgeon wanted to do a manipulation. Another said "No." One PT was aggressive with treatment; another was gentle. Massage tx helped initially but not for long. Acupuncture not really. I did my own research and as time went on, my shoulder gradually got less and less painful. At this point, a year in, I have almost no pain and rom is much better...maybe 50% un all three areas. I just started doing gentle stretching. From everything I have read and what I am experiencing, it WILL get better on its own. Good luck to everyone,,,,a horrible condition!
Congratulations!
Totally agree with you...with all due respect for medical professionals, they try so hard to alleviate our immediate symptoms with all kinds of aggressive strategy in text book, but we tend to forget that sometimes nature does take it's own course and we just have to wait it out..
People suffer more from the side effects of medicine than disease itself.
Thank you Socmo for sharing your positive progress, it's very encouraging
Well done your brave
Haha not really... or as brave as anyone of us anyway....such a horrible condition!
Thanks, Lynn... I would not wish this on my worst enemy.
Agreed! I have also taken this 'let nature take its course' approach.
About 3 months ago, a year in to my first FS, which was in my non-dominant shoulder, I got FS in my dominant shoulder. It is a bummer, however, it was much easier to do basically nothing this time as I experienced how much better my first FS got on its own. A year into the first one, the pain has diminished dramatically and ROM is steadily improving just by doing normal daily activities that don't cause pain.
My second FS, still in the freezing stage, is also beginning to become less painful. I see the light at the end of the tunnel!
Yes, this too shall pass. Hoping that all of us have pain-free full ROM shoulders very soon!
I am glad that you are progressing and that is my experience as well. Good luck to us all.
Thank you for sharing your experiences. I started with pain in my dominant shoulder at the beginning of January this year. Pain finally wore me down enough to make a visit to primary care doctor. Se diagnosed me with frozen shoulder, gave me a steroid injection in my scapula, prescribed prescription Naproxen and a muscle relaxant. Also sent me to physical therapy. Meds did not help and 6 weeks into therapy I was worse. Had an x-ray and MRI. Unremarkable. Saw orthopedic doctor yesterday. He said i should not have been in therapy yet because i am still in Freezing stage and that I was just going to have to do a gut check. I feel so frustrated because i have dealt with this pain without complaining and it has been horrible at times. Feeling depressed today because I feel people at work do not understand the pain and i am tired of suffering. Seeing others say that yes this pain is bad makes me feel validated. i will take your advice and be patient and wait it out. Thank you.
I've had pain building up for a few months now, but I've only just been diagnosed formally with frozen shoulder (although I knew!). I would not wish this pain on my worst enemy.
I was intially (and correctly, as ultrasound proved) diagnosed with bursitis. I had a cortisone injection into my bursa, but my pain didn't really improve and my range of movement got worse. Physio strengthening exercises did not help and perhaps increased my pain. External rotation has gone from 35 deg to 15 deg in past 3 weeks so hence, diagnosis of frozen shoulder.
My physio wants me to go back and have another cortisone injection, this time into the shoulder capsule, and feels that this is a relatively urgent thing as its benefit is more likely the earlier in the diagnosis that it is done. So am I shooting myself in the foot if I don't do anything during the only time it COULD help?
On the other side of the equation, my much-trusted miracle worker masseur of two decades reckons he's had 60% success rate of making a big difference to frozen shoulder, and doesn't agree with filling it with cortisone. He's given me one treatment which may or may not have made a difference to the shoulder itself (hard to tell) but it at least relieved the neck and other surrounding muscles which have got so tight because of the way I now hold myself on that side.
So... what do I do... injection? massage therapy? nothing?