One night you wake up with excruciating pain in your shoulder. You attribute the pain to some activity that you had done that day. Maybe you sprained your shoulder while playing, or lifting something, or you slept in an awkward position. After a couple of days of applying balms, ice packs, and heat pads you realize that this is not your everyday sprain. Your shoulders are stiff, movement is becoming difficult. You start restricting the movement of your shoulders to try and avoid the pain. Conducting normal, everyday chores becomes nothing short of torture. This is a condition called frozen shoulders or adhesive capsulitis.
The wide range of movements by your arm is facilitated by the ball and socket joint of the shoulder. This ball and socket joint are encapsulated by a group of ligaments called the capsule. The capsule is a connective tissue that holds the ball and socket joint of the shoulder in place and is necessary for the free movement of the shoulders. In a person suffering from a frozen shoulder, this capsule gets stiff and inflamed. Inflammation leads to scarring which tightens these ligaments and causes pain when there is movement.
Frozen shoulder is a condition that can develop spontaneously. It is usually seen in people who had very little mobility in their shoulders due to various reasons like stroke and shoulder injuries that prevent movement. Other risk factors include age, diabetes, thyroid imbalance, etc. Women are more prone to developing this condition than men.
There are three different stages of frozen shoulders: freezing stage, frozen stage, and thawing stage. The freezing stage is when you start noticing the pain and stiffness in your shoulders. This is when your capsule ligaments are starting to tighten. Intolerable pain, especially at night, is the most common symptom. In the frozen stage, the pain might be lesser but the movement of shoulder joints is highly restricted. In the thawing stage, the pain starts reducing and the shoulder movement begins to improve.
Though the frozen shoulder is self-resolving, it can take 2-3 years to achieve this without expert help. However, it will be very painful, with considerable restriction on shoulder movement that can negatively impact your day-to-day activities. Consulting a doctor can help you treat the condition in a much lesser time frame and spare you the misery of living with a frozen shoulder for years. Treatment is aimed at reducing the pain and increasing mobility. To reduce pain anti-inflammatory drugs will be prescribed. Physical therapy, ice packs, heat pads, electrical stimulation, etc, will be used to restore movement of the shoulder joints. Home exercises have to be done regularly apart from the physical therapy sessions.
Frozen shoulder is a condition that is completely curable. With continuous treatment, physical therapy, and home exercises complete restoration of shoulder movement is possible within 6-9 months.
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ORTHO ONE
ORTHOPAEDIC SPECIALITY CLINIC
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