Anyone out there with frozen shoulder?

[UnaOfStormhold]

There are a few old threads about frozen shoulder but nothing current, but given FS mostly affects women I thought Mumsnet might be a good place to go for solidarity and shared experience.

I'm about 5 months in and very fed up, lack of sleep is getting to me and the stabbing pain is like nothing else I've ever had. I've had one cortisone injection that didn't work, waiting for another one in case the first one missed the spot. Have tried physio but still in the painful stage so there's not much I can do. So I'm getting by on ibuprofen and hot wheat bag, and I went to the sauna this evening in the hope of helping it relax enough to get a bit of sleep

Anyone else out there dealing with this horrible condition and up for a chat/vent?

Mine is finally feeling much better 1 year after it started! I didn’t have any injections in the end because it took so long to get it properly diagnosed and X-rayed. Good luck, it’s a long journey.

Both mine went, one after the other. Takes about a year to 18 months for them to recover. But they do recover.

Sorry you are going through this. The ‘elephant trunk’ exercise (letting the affected arm dangle) may help a bit and a good physio can help ease the discomfort and keep it somewhat mobile. When it affects your sleep it’s awful. Weirdly even when your arm is completely stuck and you can’t raise it at all, over time it can completely go back to normal without any intervention. The uncertainty is difficult though. Good luck and sympathy.

How do you know if it is frozen shoulder? I have an incredibly painful shoulder/upper arm. It has been months. Affecting my sleep as well.

I'm usually a heat person and hate using ice, but with frozen shoulder I iced it constantly to combat the pain especially at night so I could sleep.

I hope you find something that works Op, it's hell☹️

I've had one for 4 years...it comes and goes, I've had two injections that have given relief for a few months at a time and physio/a really good massage gives a bit of respite from it. Overall it's a bit better than it was a couple of years ago but it's far from being fixed.

I'm on the waiting list for surgery as they don't want to give me anymore cortisone. I really don't want that though so am persevering with physio and hoping it'll be resolved before my name comes up.

Had one last year after a shoulder fracture. Ultrasound guided injection did help plus physio but I still have issues from the fracture. Swimming and aqua-aerobics can help apparently.

Drugs. Ibuprofen and codeine help.

None of the exercises I ever tried helped and physio actually made it worse.

What helped the most was letting it freeze as quickly as possible by not moving it. Once it had frozen, the pain was a lot less.

I've had it in both arms and one was a good 80% worse than the other. The worse one also lasted the longest. About 2-3 years in total, whereas the less severe one lasted about a year and a half.

Oh, it's so miserable when you're on the thick of it. I suffered with one arm after the other too. Persevere with physio and do ALL the exercises they recommend. I never thought I'd come out the other side, but I did. And at pilates on Monday, I managed to get both arms overhead and down on the floor behind me. I could have cheered!

(The small print: it took 3 years of physio and 2 sets of steroid injections).

Interesting how there are different experiences of physio here. Mine was amazing.

I’m 3-4 years in. Had injections and more recently surgery. Jury still out on whether the surgery has helped, but solidarity OP

@Louloubelles glad you're coming out the other side. It must have been frustrating not getting diagnosed but honestly there doesn't seem to be much they can actually do after diagnosis!

@Wisperley I dread my other one going, the only thing keeping me going is that it's not my dominant hand. Good to hear yours have cleared up.

@chocciechocface the physio thought mine was subacromial impingement at first, but about the turn of the year I lost the ability to move my arm outside a very narrow range - it's weird, like it turned into a different joint that just doesn't move that way even if someone else tries to move it. Anyway that was what convinced them it was FS rather than anything else. Sorry you're struggling with pain and sleep, I think the whole thing would be easier to cope with if I could just sleep! Hope you get some answers soon

A colleague had this and she went to an osteopath. There happened to be an osteopathy school near our work and people in certain professions got a discount at their clinic. I know she needed several sessions and did exercises at home before regaining full movement.

So sorry to hear people struggling for 3-4 years, that's crazy and must be so frustrating. Hope the surgery makes a difference @Computadora

It's interesting to have different views on physio and exercise. I am not doing very much with it at the moment, just trying to keep it moving within the non twingy range without provoking it further. Heat seems to help more than cold, hence trying the sauna tonight.

Pain relief wise I am currently using ibuprofen tablets and 10%gel as I don't fancy taking codeine for the length of time this is likely to last. But it might come to that.

Yes!

Ive had 2 steroid injections and hydrodilation - pain is much better but it still doesn’t move 18 months later

Hi, yes about a year into FS. Had a steroid injectiin a few months back and then a few weeks after that hydrodilation. The hydro gave me a lot of movement back but the procedure bloody hurt. I have a repeat of the hydro next week. All on the NHS

@Blushingm and @Boots89 I've been wondering about hydrodilation if the second cortisone doesn't work. The injection was painful in a weird way - I nearly fainted, at least partly due to the weirdness rather than than the pain I think, but managed to hang on long enough for them to finish. I imagine hydrodilation is a worse but am getting to the point where I'd consider anything!

Hope the repeat injection next week goes well Boots.

It took about 15 mins for the whole procedure. It does hurt but not unbearable. Less painful than catching your shoukder I can say that much 🤣

Ah I was researching this just yesterday and now believe this what I’ve had with hindsight. Started about 5 years ago with shoulder pain for no reason. It was during the back end of Covid when getting a doctor to see you was like finding hens teeth. I had a telephone appointment and he said it sounded like tendinosis and prescribed me naproxen. It helped a bit for a while but then it got worse and I just learned to put up with it. I didn’t go back to the doctors, just figured it would resolve itself at some point of if I was careful and did some exercises. 5 years on and I can move it much better now but it still aches sometimes and I have muscle soreness in my neck probably from holding myself weirdly over the years.
Apparently there is a big link between the drop in Estrogen in perimenopause and frozen shoulder and funnily enough it was around the same time I was starting having night sweats and my periods started changing in regularity.
Its been incredibly frustrating and painful but I can’t complain too much as I didn’t really get the help I should have with it and now it’s just a middle-aged niggle I put up with

My husband had this in both shoulders. He had various interventions with the first one and it lasted six months. He just left it with the second one and it lasted six months. So on that basis he wouldn't recommend bothering with the interventions, but we are all different.

Acupuncture, cupping and moving/sliding cupping solved mine. Huge relief after 18 months of pain and not being able to move my arm.

Hydrodilatation was the only relief I got after 8 months. Didn’t help with the movement but took the pain away. Movement is back now after 2 years. Physio said modern thinking is that it doesn’t help recovery. Push for dilatation asap.

Hot water bottle or heat pad. A frozen shoulder needs heat as recommended by my GP.

Oh no, frozen shoulder is the pits.

Mine lasted just over a year. Best things I found that helped was physio and hydrotherapy. I started going to the gym - not 100% sure if it helped or just a coincidence but it started to clear around the same time. My physio also strapped it up with that black tape that I’ve forgotten the name of which helped with the acheyness at night

I’ve got full movement back, but the other side feels like it’s going now. I get the same pain and restriction for little while and then it goes away again. Weird.

mine also started to cause problems after sometime menopause and I had an X-ray and physio and painkillers but the major difference was HRT. I had no idea of the link but I felt different within 3 days of starting the dose. Longer term it’s helped to swim and to do some basic shoulder mobilising exercises. Dr Jo, a physio who puts stuff on YouTube is very good. It is a long haul but keep at it, it should start to improve.