Frozen shoulder. Is there anything that will cure it?

[123MothergotafleA]

Recently diagnosed with frozen shoulder and been to see physio who has given me a series of exercises to do daily. From my reading of the situation,the process is likely to take years to resolve. Steroid injections may be of some benefit. A friend has advised me to try Bowen Technique, as she herself found it helpful.
I am not content to leave this painful condition to chance and have a busy life to lead.
Any wise Mumsnetters out there who can give me hope please?

I had three sessions with an osteopath which cleared mine.... no injections, just manipulation, strapping and cold gels. Good luck.... ita such a painful condition x

Osteopathy made mine so much worse. I used to come out shaking and in tears and be wobbly for hours afterwards. A steroid injection properly targeted fixed it almost instantly.

Thank you for your comments, much appreciated.

YY to steroid injection -- one shot did the job for me!

2 years and still going here. 12 months of physio, 2 steroid injections and I am now waiting for surgery.

The physio really helped to gain most of the movement back, but I am still in constant pain.

Manual therapy has been shown to reduce recovery time, especially for the painful phase. Full recovery of ROM can still take some months though and IME recovery varies a lot from person to person. Google Niall Asher Technique

Acupuncture?

I had an ultrasound guided hydrodilatation of the shoulder which gave me back 80% of my movement within about a month. I did lots of exercises after the procedure too.

Reflexologist treated mine when I was seeing her about a different problem. I've had steroid injections from the GP into the shoulder - 1st worked brilliantly but 2nd made no difference. I was offered surgery but the odds were not in my favour.

Reflexologist is wonderful and I have occasional hints that its happening again but she fixes it. Any return of symptoms have no comparison with how things used to be. Some days I wasn't able to brush my hair because I couldn't lift my arm up. Both shoulders ended up being affected.

I had this last year. Truly panicked over it all as I couldn't do my job properly and was concerned it might even be career limiting. I literally couldn't move my arm and had nerve symptoms too, was awful so you have my sympathy.
After a while I had one steroid injection and then had hydrotherapy at the recommendation of my physiotherapist. Absolutely amazing, had weekly sessions for about 8 or 9 weeks. It took some time and have gradually increased what I do and am now completely better 9 months later. Working as before, no problem.
All the above was on the NHS and I do really recommend the hydrotherapy if you can get it. The physio said it is particularly good for frozen shoulder.

A licensed physio cured mine in three sessions. Couldn't move previously.

Mine lasted about 5 years - physio, chiropractic, more physio and osteo did not 'cure' it. Acupuncture did.
And I don't even believe in it!

Bowen worked for my ankle when I was recovering from a break.

I've recently had surgery for mine, arthroscopic capsular release but I also had other issues going on too that were dealt with at the same time. It's been slow since the surgery but I am gaining better motion with the ongoing physio since then, and the pain is a different sort of pain - whilst not nice it isn't that all consuming pain when you move and I've lost a large amount of the shooting pains that were going down my arm but not completely gone yet. It feels like a pain that has a chance of settling in time.

Also had arthroscopic capsule release surgery at a private hospital about five years ago after 12 months of agony. Took about six months to recover but haven't looked back since.

hydrodistention worked for me. I’m not sure that it is available on the NHS though. It cost me about £250 to have it done privately (although most of that was covered by my insurance). I wouldn’t hesitate at having it again though; 50% more movement immediately afterwards and 75% within a month. The pain was massively reduced within a few days.

I know this isn't what you want to hear, but in short, no. Physio, acupuncture and cortisone injections may help but they won't cure it. Hydrodistenion is still quite new and some people don't believe it helps - hence it's not on NHS yet.

In my experience, only time will heal it full. 12-18 months

Sorry! You have my utter sympathy.

I had both mine go, one after the other in the space of 18 months. One responded well to physio. The other didn't. Neither responded to injections. I was scheduled to have Manipulation under aneasthetic on both but as the waiting list was so long, both had improved before the op date and I cancelled.

I got my hydrodilatation done on the NHS - was referred by my GP and had it done at my local hospital. So it may vary by area, but I didn't pay anything for it. And it worked for me.

Ah ok Ontopofthesunset. It's not available here

Thanks to everyone who has responded to my plea. I am considering all the options, and am interested in the Hydrotherapy at the moment. I will attend my next Physio appointment and discuss Steroid injection.
I will throw everything at it bar the kitchen sink ( which might not be wise) as I refuse to put up with continuing pain and stiffness. C

Good luck op. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. I hope you can get some relief

I had about 6 sessions of physiotherapy (referred by GP) after the pain subsided to a bearable level, and then started doing yoga- after a few weeks of yoga I recovered full movement in the shoulder.

I tried a chiropractor, which didn’t do a lot, and then gave up and went to the GP. He offered a steroid injection but thought hydrodilatation was a better bet - I had a 6 week wait for it on the NHS here. About 2 weeks before the hydrodilatation date I noticed the pain was reducing (about 5 months after I first noticed pain). In the end the hydrodilatation couldn’t be done (I had a weird reaction to the procedure) so I just kept on with the physio exercises that the chiropractor had recommended. Pain completely went at 6 months in and for the last 6 months movement has been improving, I reckon I’m at 80% or so now.

I used these exercises: www.health.harvard.edu/shoulders/stretching-exercises-frozen-shoulder

And I’d recommend a support pillow to help with sleep - I used another pillow to prop my affected arm up into a more comfortable position.

Mine took 3 years. Osteopath and physio didn’t help at all. Steroid injection did help a bit. 100% back to normal now.

I had what my consultant called a text book frozen shoulder.

Unfortunately it took a year and a half of GP visits , scans , two steroid injections and physio before I managed to get someone to understand just how much pain I was in. I had almost completely lost the use of my right arm by this point and would wake up at night because of the pain.

I broke down in tears at a physio appt because I was so frustrated that my shoulder was worse than ever. The therapist agreed to refer me to a consultant even though my GP had refused to refer me.

Consultant couldn't believe I'd been left in such a state and immediately booked me in for a shoulder manipulation under general anaesthesia.

After that and some more physio it got better very quickly.

I am so annoyed that I allowed myself to be fobbed off for so long.

I hope you get it sorted.

I remember reading an article where Sinitta had frozen shoulder and a Botox injection cured it.