The first thing to do though, is to work out if it actually is a frozen shoulder
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Yes it can! There are many options that physios have when it comes to helping you, from physically treating the shoulder and the area surrounding it, to teaching you how to do it yourself. I can work out some good options to help you manage your life and sleep which means that your shoulder doesn’t take up too much time in your life.
Frozen shoulder treatment
The first thing to do though, is to work out if it is a frozen shoulder, there are several other painful shoulder conditions that can mimic one. These range from a rotator cuff tear to a cartilage tear to a fracture; but it’s also possible for an apparently stiff shoulder to be compensating for an issue elsewhere in the body. Examples being, a stiff ribcage or a sore neck. We need to know what we’re dealing with before we can start treating it effectively.
Let’s be clear though, treating a frozen shoulder is not always a quick fix. Loosening a joint that feels as though it has been super-glued in place, is not fun, not easy, can be time consuming, arduous and repetitive. There will be a lot of work from the patient between physio sessions, with a lot of stretching needed to make progress. We cannot effectively treat frozen shoulder passively, unless you wanted to attend daily sessions.
What techniques do you use to treat a frozen shoulder?
If you’re at all familiar with the way I work, you might already have guessed that I have cherry-picked techniques from a lot of brilliant clinicians and tutors! I might not necessarily use all these techniques on every patient I see, I would choose a selection that are used regularly, where appropriate.
In a frozen shoulder therapy session there tends to be a fair amount of hands-on therapy, especially in the early stages, as this is the part you will struggle to do yourself at home. I will often be working on other areas of your body as well as the shoulder, as the shoulder has direct relationships with the ribcage, neck and elbow; and indirectly with a lot more of the body than that!
Stiff or painful areas will often cause or react to other stiff or painful areas, so I believe it’s important to treat other frozen shoulder pain areas, as well as the shoulder, so that the other areas stop triggering the shoulder pain and stiffness.
For more information on what exactly a frozen shoulder is and more in depth treatment information, read my frozen shoulder treatment blog here.
What’s going on inside a frozen shoulder is actually still quite up for debate, though what essentially happens is the shoulder capsule appears to get tight and sticky. This will cause the joint to stiffen and then become sore when you attempt movement.
The pain beacuse of the many nerve endings that don’t like to be stretched. This then leads to surrounding muscles tending to go into spasm (our brains respond to all injuries in the same way (it might be broken/unstable, I must immobilise it). Gradually this can move down the body which can stiffen up, along with the shoulder joint.
To give it a proper name, adhesive capsulitis (more commonly known as frozen shoulder), is a condition that will affect between 2-5% of the population over the course of a lifetime.
Generally, it will affect more women than men, and is especially common after the menopause. It is slightly more common to get the condition in your non-dominant shoulder. However, if you are unlucky enough to have been affected by adhesive capsulitis in both of your shoulders, it is very unlikely you’ll have this in both shoulders at once.
Follow-up sessions if required are usually an hour – it’s important to me to be very thorough when it comes to your frozen shoulder physiotherapy, as I want to be the last shoulder physiotherapist you need.
Where i share my logical and simple formula to help you improve your own body. See all my frozen shoulder physiotherapy related videos.
Physiotherapy for a frozen shoulder includes specialist treatment for this common condition. As an expert in this field, I use a combination of therapy to provide pain relief and improve shoulder movement. My tailored shoulder exercises focus on stretching and strengthening to increase the shoulder range of motion and alleviate any discomfort.
Certain stretching exercises in particular, have proven effective in improving range of movement and helping patients regain full function of their shoulder. At my clinic, I strive to provide individual care and work with each patient to achieve their specific goals for shoulder mobility and pain relief.
As a leading shoulder physiotherapist in central London, I regularly write about injuries, treatment and assessment techniques.
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