I can put my arms behind my back, but I used to be able to reach one behind my shoulder and the other up from my waist and clasp my hands.
Now I can barely touch my fingers.
Things that were not painful before (pulling on jeans) now hurt like crazy, but generally during the day my shoulder is less painful. Improved ability to reach overhead (30 degrees off vertical) but not any improvement in other flexibility.
@emeraldkity4, there is no way my fingers could touch. There’s like an 8 inch gap. I know it will improve eventually though, but my dream of being a circus contortionist is fading.
The shot is now a week out. The pain is subsiding in many areas, however shaving my underarms and putting on deodorant is still death defying. I just swung a golf club and it’s the follow through that’s still so painful. I hear two weeks for full benefit so I’m hoping to see more relief over the next week.
I think I’d have to unattach my arms at the shoulders to get them to move in the position to bend backwards.
The shaving is brutal, @eyemamom, but as I can’t lift my arm much anyway, I’m hoping no one will notice!
I had a really bad night last night - arm throbbing all night & very little sleep. I went to PT this morning & he recommended a cortisone shot to try to break the cycle of inflammation. Glad to hear you’re seeing results @eyemamom! Agree on the shaving - hard to do at a 90 degree angle.
1 cortisone shot and 3 weeks PT and improved a lot. Just being doesn’t hurt and overhead is pretty close full range. I can now hook my bra but have to think about I position my arm. Still have trouble with bent arm reaching back. Had one bad session with weight and really ached for few days but it seemed to “break” something loose and I have more motion.
Some moves make my muscle seize and therapist will shake out arm and massage behind shoulder blade. OMG if he could just follow me around all day and do that I wouldn’t need therapy
Getting worse! How can this be? It’s keeping me awake all night and turning me into a biotch.
I pulled or sprained a muscle under my left armpit a week ago from swinging a golf club too hard without stretching first and warming up first before playing. I should know better than to not do warm ups first. It is interesting how the stretches orthopedic doctors often prescribe for rehab are basically the same stretches one should do for strengthening and injury prevention before getting injured!
Barfly - I wish I could help and I can relate to the biotch behavior. Pain is a horrible, horrible thing to try and live with. I got downright nasty and rude. It hurt to even talk so I started thinking of ways to shorten my sentences before I opened my mouth. The result came out like I was barking 2-5 word commands at people. This did not go over well.
I am so sorry everyone is hurting!
This experience has made me rethink a lot of assumptions. Now when someone is short with me, I think they are probably hurting someplace. I am frequently very short and just hope people cut me some slack.
Saturday I slipped on my back steps while doing a clean-up and trying to carry in too many items at one time. So now my arthritic fingers don’t hurt, nor my shoulder, because all I can feel is my hip. To be honest, that may be a nice change for a while. It kind of horrifies me to even write that.
Got my cortisone shot this AM. Anxiously awaiting some relief from pain & maybe a really good night’s sleep sometime soon. Hoping you all are doing well!
Keep us posted, @GertrudeMcFuzz. Hope you feel better soon.
I’m waiting for 5 p.m. for my painkiller. Seems a bit too early for a vodka and tonic.
I’m officially at my 2 week mark, which is when the doc said I’d have full impact of the cortisone shot. There has been tremendous relief in my neck down to my shoulder, but I still feel the pain at the front and back of the joint and across my arm. I’m thinking it’s rotator cuff. I go back next Tuesday. For those wondering…i still do shave under my arms and wear deoderant, but I grimace every day doing it. I’m still sleeping with my snoogle body pillow and I haven’t slept on that side or raised the arm up in my sleep.
I started PT today. I know the the pt pretty well professionally. He said I had pretty severe, and classic impingement syndrome. I had the tens, ultra sound, deep tissue massage, then he’s manually moving my arm and I did several different exercises. The goal is to increase mobility, decrease pain and increase strength - in that order. It was a huge relief getting it stretched and moved but holy moly is it sore now! I’ll be going 3 x a week.
Keep us posted! Mine’s getting worse for some reason - hurting ALL the time now!
Thanks to this thread, I’ve now realized that have been having frozen shoulder type of symptoms. I thought mine was damaged during a yoga pose, but maybe it was both. Anyway, I ave this problem for more than 10 years, slowing getting better. But after reading this thread I start to stretch more. But boy did I have sleep problem about 3 years ago so I absolutely sympathize.
Im sitting here with a cold therapy machine on my shoulder. I can’t say I wasn’t warned…
Officially released from physical therapy. Much better. Pretty much full mobility
although some moves don’t feel so great now I know that means I need to stretch out instead of babying it. Slightly amusing and disturbing that when I went in this am there were about 10 patients in the facility (all women) and at least 6 of us were working on shoulders. I Wonder if it’s just the age we fall apart?
Yes, my dad has had this ailment twice. He’s now 90. Sis has already had it twice and is 60! She’s had a lot of PT. I try to carry only LIGHT nylon handbags with very little in them and I think it MAY help.
I believe the fluorquinolones (form of antibiotics) I took for frequent respiratory infections made me especially susceptible to tendinitis and bursitis; not frozen shoulder but it did manifest in my shoulder so I’ve been very careful NOT to aggravate them.
So I’m feeling bad for clicking on “Like” in response to everyone’s pain. I wish there was a “Bummer” button I could click instead.