<p>I’ve been doing the PT for a few weeks now and am feeling better. I can even grab my left wrist behind my back with my right hand! I’ve found three exercises that seem to do the most good. One is stretching behind my back, another is using a pulley to pull my left arm up or up and over and the third is the pendulum swing. I’ll do the last one at odd moments during the day just because it feels good. </p>
<p>There’s a hand cycling bike at the PT place that seems to help too. I think someone mentioned it a couple of pages back. My PT person said that I can get a similar effect by using cans of tomato paste and singing, “choo- choo Charlie was an Engineer…” while doing the hand motions to the song. I knew exactly what she meant when she said it, and she’s right!</p>
<p>Bumping this thread back up. How’s everyone doing? I’ve gone to PT 25 times now and have reached some sort of plateau. The PT people want me to do an ortho consult for a possible manipulation. Anyone have experience with that? I am no longer in pain but don’t have the normal range of motion. I am, frankly, scared of the manipulation procedure. Downsides? Both PT people insist that frozen shoulder doesn’t “go away” and while the inflammation may go away (and the pain) unless the range of motion is back, it’s still considered frozen.</p>
<p>Kathiep, I had two frozen shoulders. One I treated and it got better after awhile. The other I let it run its course and it got better after awhile. They are painful and not a pleasant experience and physical therapists do help if they know what they are doing. But in my experience it does go away with treatment and without it.</p>
<p>kathiep, it took two full years of PT for me to regain my full range of motion in my left shoulder. It still feels crunchy but it is fully operational and pain free.</p>
<p>Two weeks ago I tweaked my right shoulder in Pilates class and five days later it suddenly froze up and was hideously painful. The symptoms were exactly like frozen shoulder except that it came on so quickly. I was completely panicked and on the advice of my Pilates teacher, I bombarded it with a homeopathic regimen of Traumeel and Arnica. I also took an Alleve every 8 hours. I suppose I will never know if it really was the beginning of frozen shoulder or a pinched nerve or disc problem in my neck but the pain and immobility were completely gone within 5 days. I was flabbergasted.</p>
<p>hotcanary, What does “go away” mean? That it no longer hurts and you have full range (or almost) of motion? Although my insurance supposedly covers 60 PT visits they say they have to be able to prove progress for it to continue after some point. Since I’m almost at the halfway point, they think a re-evaluation is in order.</p>
<p>My frozen shoulder appeared out of nowhere, overnight, and disappeared the same way, after about 15 months of pain and very limited range of motion. At about the 9 month period I went to a physical therapist, but it didn’t do much and my copay was too high for the little I was getting out of it.</p>
<p>At this point I am pain-free with complete range of motion.</p>
<p>Have you tried having a couple of deep tissue massages? Massage actually really helped mine. </p>
<p>Having said that, I thought I had full range of motion back but started a yoga class recently and when the teacher was checking our positions out she walked up behind me and asked about what was going on with that arm and if it was hurting (it wasn’t). Went back home and stood in front of the mirror and raised my arms and sure enough that arm was not straight up in the air like the other one, but a little to the side. So I guess I did not get back full motion, but not enough problem for me to be even aware of it though.</p>
<p>I went for PT for my frozen shoulder and ended up seeing 3 different therapists who did a variety of manipulations and exercises with me. The only one that helped did a sort of trigger point massage on different areas of my shoulder girdle. It hurt like hell while she was doing it, but my pain disappeared temporarily and I had a much better range of movement. This inspired me to look into trigger point massage (also recommended in this thread), and it has almost cured me at this point. I’ve found that for me, it’s mostly trigger points in in my shoulder in the back of my underarm that restrict my movement (and cause the pain). All I have to do is massage them a little myself and the pain disappears, and I can move my arm freely again.</p>
<p>Just wanted to post an update. I stopped PT about a month ago when the therapist felt she was not seeing enough of an improvement and really wanted me to go for the manipulation by an orthopedic surgeon. From everything I had read on-line, I really believed that that was a drastic measure and refused. I continued to do the exercises and stretches they taught me and, what do you know, I am pretty much back to normal. I can hook my bra, reach my hand all the way over my head and except for a little twinge now and then am totally pain free.</p>
<p>I just went to a doctor this morning, and I officially have frozen shoulder. The treatment: Alleve for 5-7 days, physical therapy 2-3x/week for 4 weeks, see doctor again, cortisone shot if insufficient improvement. He expects it to resolve completely. (Of course, from this thread it seems that this condition resolves with or without treatment…)</p>
<p>I almost brought this thread back up two months ago when I got a sudden onset of what seemed to be a frozen right shoulder (I had it on the left side about 3 years ago). I was in agony and panicky, thinking about the impact it would have on the coming months or years of my life. Upon the advice of Pilates teacher, I kept my arm perfectly still and bombarded myself with Arnica, Traumeel, and Alleve for about 4 days. I took the Arnica every 3 hours. Within 48 hours, to my great astonishment, the pain and immobility started to abate. I tapered off the dosage over the course of a week and was back to my usual activities within 2 weeks. It was really the strangest thing. I will never know if it was a true frozen shoulder and I somehow arrested the inflammation process or if it was some other kind of nerve or muscle injury. I was just enormously relieved and happy not to spend another year or two in pain.</p>
<p>Yep, from my experience, it resolves with or without therapy. I did it both ways since I had two frozen shoulders. First one and then the other.</p>
<p>puzzled - I’m a big fan of arnica ointment; did you use ointment, or take it internally. I’ve never used Traumeel, but have heard of it. Is it different enough from Arnica that it makes sense to do both?</p>
<p>I broke my arm, so had a chance to ask the orthopedic guy about the pain in both my upper arms. Diagnosis is “shoulder impingement,” a likely precursor to frozen shoulder if allowed to progress. Basically the rotator cuff is pinching the tendons, for some reason. Doc prescribed PT and recommended yoga to prevent it getting worse. PT is maybe helping it not get worse, and reminds me I need to stretch more and not hunch over the computer. I can’t do yoga very well until my arm is totally healed, so I’m not able to add anything helpful here about how that will work.</p>
<p>kathiep, I also experienced a frozen shoulder. Had PT up to the max allowed. Then it was cold turkey. The only relief I expected to feel was in not having to make all those appointments. But, it’s been about 18 months and I’m almost fully back to normal. I really very flexible, and while my right side isn’t nearly as stretchy as my left, it’s getting there. No pain. No waking up in the middle of the night. No effort putting on my bra.</p>
<p>I’m doing much better than when I last posted, but I’m nowhere near over it. I am doing the PT exercises at home, and they definitely have helped improve my range of motion. I do them on both sides, because I believe my right shoulder was starting to freeze, and this seemed to help prevent it. When I neglect the exercises, I feel it. But my left arm is still extremely stiff and weak. I’m doing some exercises to strengthen the muscles. I’ve reached a plateau, which is kind of depressing, but on the bright side,applying deodorant isn’t such a challenge. This began in March, so I’m hoping that I’ll be one of those who recover in a year.</p>
<p>I have a friend who got the frozen shoulder thing in late spring. She’s been to PT, had the cortisone shot, and is now having surgery. Honestly? Surgery is the very last thing I’d sign up for. </p>
<p>As I noted earlier on this thread, I had the shot, which did absolutely nothing, and then did some PT. I had started the PT at a place near our beach house last summer. I guess it helped some, but not a lot. Then when we moved back “home” last fall, I decided against finding another PT place and just started in again at the gym. I found using the Lat Pulldown machine did wonders; it really helped stretch out my shoulder. By November I was almost 100% – a total of 8 months from onset.</p>
<p>puzzled - I’m a big fan of arnica ointment; did you use ointment, or take it internally. I’ve never used Traumeel, but have heard of it. Is it different enough from Arnica that it makes sense to do both?</p>
<p>I took those tiny arnica tablets that come in a chapstick-sized tube. They come in different dilutions and I learned that you use a higher number for a “deeper” treatment. I used the one for an acute injury, I think it was 30X but am not entirely sure. It would be best to talk to someone who knows more than me. As I said, I took it every 3 hours for a few days. I wondered about taking Traumeel at the same time since Arnica is one of its active ingredients. I was assured that it was fine and I took that three times a day. I had taken Traumeel once before when I slipped on ice last winter and fell on my tailbone. I was very, very sore and had a hideous black bruise. I took a single tablet of Traumeel that a friend gave me and was 50% better the following morning and fully healed within a few days. I was pretty shocked at how well it worked which is why I thought of it when the new frozen shoulder started on a Friday night.</p>
<p>I didn’t use either Arnica or Traumeel in ointment form since the instructions for both say not to use it over a large skin surface area. I was hurting from my elbow to my neck and throughout the shoulder in between.</p>
<p>As I’ve said, I am no expert on homeopathic remedies and I did take Alleve at the same time. One small thing I learned is that Arnica or Traumeel should be taken well before or after you eat (or brush your teeth) and you’re supposed to drop the tablets (I took 5 of Arnica at a time) straight into your mouth from the cap of the container without touching them. It seemed unusual to me but I was very startled by the results.</p>