Wanted to reach out to the ST community here to see if anyone has gone/going through “frozen shoulder” /adhesive capsulitis? I have completed 9+ weeks of PT, including home PT exercise, and had a cocktail injection two weeks ago. I also started swimming again, but man that is still a bit rough. Just looking to see how long it took you to recover from this diagnosis? Did you find any particular exercises or stretches to benefit you during your recovery?
Thanks for sharing.
I had it a few years ago and still feel it some.
I did PT and an injection. They didn’t work for me.
What did work was hanging from a pull-up bar a few rimes a day. It was really painful to start but I started getting range back within a week. Do a little Google searching and read about it.
These guys are kinda hokey, but surprisingly this helped my recent shoulder issue:
I went through this 2 years ago. I had tendonitis in my shoulder so I slacked off, and in the end I came down with this and had it for about 9 months. Went through physio etc. but in the end I think I just marked time while it ran its course. I stretched it several times daily, and I’ve started swimming again just recently (I broke my leg for 2 plates and 16 screws at the start of last summer, so it’s been a rough couple of years). I still feel it in my shoulder a little, but it’s improving.
All you can do is all you can do: stretch it, do whatever PT tells you, hope for the best. Good luck!
Read up briefly on frozen shoulder…sometimes related to diabetes…as I aged I found going low carb higher quality fats helped me with OA…check your diet
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I experienced frozen shoulder from a long day of carrying large rocks a couple of years ago. I did the PT thing and had an injection but over-the-door pulleys gave me the greatest return of range of motion. What I remember being told was that the pain I was experiencing during exercises wouldn’t lead to re-injury and that each painful episode was increasing my range of motion so I worked at it. I did swim through my recovery and thankfully it’s in the rear-view mirror.
Greatly appreciate the testimonies and feedback by all here. I haven’t tried the hanging from a pull-up bar, but looks like something that could help. I just started some home traction exercises, with bands, as well and that seems to help with progress. For those interested, this is what I’m following:
Mobility Wod
Thanks again ST!
Very good. I subscribe to mobilitywod and use the bands too with hooked around shoulder from chin up bar and leaning away from bar to pull shoulder shoulder back. And bringing hand and arm of bad shoulder side behind back like someone had me in hammerlock.
Lots of us suffer from forward rounded shoulders from desk jobs and computer work…poor posture. Good luck, inch by inch it’s a cinch.
What I remember being told was that the pain I was experiencing during exercises wouldn’t lead to re-injury and that each painful episode was increasing my range of motion so I worked at it.
Quoted for truth. Think of it as a finite amount of pain you have to endure. Get it over with. I was told you can’t stretch too much so instead of the daily stretching they recommended I was doing it at least 3x per day. I should have kept at it with back flexibility so now I’d be more aero!
I went through this 2 years ago. **I had tendonitis in my shoulder so I slacked off, **and in the end I came down with this and had it for about 9 months. Went through physio etc. but in the end I think I just marked time while it ran its course. I stretched it several times daily, and I’ve started swimming again just recently (I broke my leg for 2 plates and 16 screws at the start of last summer, so it’s been a rough couple of years). I still feel it in my shoulder a little, but it’s improving.
All you can do is all you can do: stretch it, do whatever PT tells you, hope for the best. Good luck!
Was your tendonitis from swimming so you stopped swimming and got the frozen??? I have known 5-6 people who have had frozen, and 3 were former D1 swimmers, and they all got it when they were not swimming. Once they got back in the water and swam regularly, no frozen. 500 yds a day keeps the frozen away. 
The frozen came after shoulder tendonitis which caused me to stop swimming. In fact, I favoured my other arm for everything so the Dr. thought the frozen might be as a result of not using my left arm. I can’t say if it’s from tendonitis, or not swimming, or both.
The frozen came after shoulder tendonitis which caused me to stop swimming. In fact, I favoured my other arm for everything so the Dr. thought the frozen might be as a result of not using my left arm. I can’t say if it’s from tendonitis, or not swimming, or both.
It seems intuitive that frozen shoulder comes from lack of use in a full range of motion. I would say that tendonitis caused you to stop swimming which the caused the frozen shoulder. If a person can swim and avoid tendon issues, then i think it highly unlikely that he/she would get frozen shoulder.
It’s my guess as well, but it’s an intuitive / N+1 guess so I can’t say for certain. All in all it was 1/10, don’t recommend it. It’s still not 100%.
Wanted to reach out to the ST community here to see if anyone has gone/going through “frozen shoulder” /adhesive capsulitis? I have completed 9+ weeks of PT, including home PT exercise, and had a cocktail injection two weeks ago. I also started swimming again, but man that is still a bit rough. Just looking to see how long it took you to recover from this diagnosis? Did you find any particular exercises or stretches to benefit you during your recovery?
Thanks for sharing.
Have treated many of these over the years. Definitely can be a frustration, hang in there. True adhesive capsulitis can have an odd progression at time.
Really it will depend what stage of recovery you are in determining how much longer. Think of it as 3 phases. 1) Freezing stage, 2) Frozen stage 3) Thawing stage. The exercise prescription will depend on what phase you are in. I’m assuming that since you are swimming again, you have back MOST of your ROM (so the “thawing” phase) In that case the capsule is likely loosening up some…so estimate 2-3 more weeks (rough guess).
I had frozen shoulder in both sides 20 years ago or so. Standard therapy in those days was cortisone (?) injections and physical therapy. In my case both were a waste of time and money. In the end, the only things that worked for me were overhead stretches using a cane, alternate shoulder stretching using an exercise pulley, and stretching using exercise bands. It only took about 2 weeks to get back nearly all range of motion.
Wanted to reach out to the ST community here to see if anyone has gone/going through “frozen shoulder” /adhesive capsulitis? I have completed 9+ weeks of PT, including home PT exercise, and had a cocktail injection two weeks ago. I also started swimming again, but man that is still a bit rough. Just looking to see how long it took you to recover from this diagnosis? Did you find any particular exercises or stretches to benefit you during your recovery?
Thanks for sharing.
Have treated many of these over the years. Definitely can be a frustration, hang in there. True adhesive capsulitis can have an odd progression at time.
Really it will depend what stage of recovery you are in determining how much longer. Think of it as 3 phases. 1) Freezing stage, 2) Frozen stage 3) Thawing stage. The exercise prescription will depend on what phase you are in. I’m assuming that since you are swimming again, you have back MOST of your ROM (so the “thawing” phase) In that case the capsule is likely loosening up some…so estimate 2-3 more weeks (rough guess).
Since you have treated many frozen cases, do you think that a swimmer doing 6-7 days/wk would ever get frozen shoulder??? It seems to me that doing 1000 or so reps with each arm in a 3000-5000 m workout each day would make getting frozen shoulder highly unlikely, but this is just my engineer, non-PT opinion. Your thoughts???
Wanted to reach out to the ST community here to see if anyone has gone/going through “frozen shoulder” /adhesive capsulitis? I have completed 9+ weeks of PT, including home PT exercise, and had a cocktail injection two weeks ago. I also started swimming again, but man that is still a bit rough. Just looking to see how long it took you to recover from this diagnosis? Did you find any particular exercises or stretches to benefit you during your recovery?
Thanks for sharing.
Have treated many of these over the years. Definitely can be a frustration, hang in there. True adhesive capsulitis can have an odd progression at time.
Really it will depend what stage of recovery you are in determining how much longer. Think of it as 3 phases. 1) Freezing stage, 2) Frozen stage 3) Thawing stage. The exercise prescription will depend on what phase you are in. I’m assuming that since you are swimming again, you have back MOST of your ROM (so the “thawing” phase) In that case the capsule is likely loosening up some…so estimate 2-3 more weeks (rough guess).
Since you have treated many frozen cases, do you think that a swimmer doing 6-7 days/wk would ever get frozen shoulder??? It seems to me that doing 1000 or so reps with each arm in a 3000-5000 m workout each day would make getting frozen shoulder highly unlikely, but this is just my engineer, non-PT opinion. Your thoughts???
Frozen shoulder typically doesn’t affect athletic/active folks, but it’s not unheard of. When I get a PT script for “frozen shoulder” honestly, 50% of the time it’s not a typical frozen shoulder…it’s just a bit of a stiff inferior/posterior caspule (they present differently). I can see this etiology though:…Said patient (swimmer, triathlete) gets a bit of an overuse tendinopathy, it becomes painful to use the arm, he/she starts to protect the arm a bit (avoids using it overhead, stops exercising, etc) As time goes, the capsule gets stiff, he/she shows up to doc complaining of a stiff/painful shoulder…diagnosed with a “frozen shoulder”. Most athletic/active folks who get true frozen shoulder, get it post operatively (SLAP repair, cuff repair) or post traumatic immobilization (fractured clavicle or AC separation that sits in a sling and gets “frozen”. Hope this makes sense.
Wanted to reach out to the ST community here to see if anyone has gone/going through “frozen shoulder” /adhesive capsulitis? I have completed 9+ weeks of PT, including home PT exercise, and had a cocktail injection two weeks ago. I also started swimming again, but man that is still a bit rough. Just looking to see how long it took you to recover from this diagnosis? Did you find any particular exercises or stretches to benefit you during your recovery?
Thanks for sharing.
Have treated many of these over the years. Definitely can be a frustration, hang in there. True adhesive capsulitis can have an odd progression at time.
Really it will depend what stage of recovery you are in determining how much longer. Think of it as 3 phases. 1) Freezing stage, 2) Frozen stage 3) Thawing stage. The exercise prescription will depend on what phase you are in. I’m assuming that since you are swimming again, you have back MOST of your ROM (so the “thawing” phase) In that case the capsule is likely loosening up some…so estimate 2-3 more weeks (rough guess).
Since you have treated many frozen cases, do you think that a swimmer doing 6-7 days/wk would ever get frozen shoulder??? It seems to me that doing 1000 or so reps with each arm in a 3000-5000 m workout each day would make getting frozen shoulder highly unlikely, but this is just my engineer, non-PT opinion. Your thoughts???
Frozen shoulder typically doesn’t affect athletic/active folks, but it’s not unheard of. When I get a PT script for “frozen shoulder” honestly, 50% of the time it’s not a typical frozen shoulder…it’s just a bit of a stiff inferior/posterior caspule (they present differently). I can see this etiology though:…Said patient (swimmer, triathlete) gets a bit of an overuse tendinopathy, it becomes painful to use the arm, he/she starts to protect the arm a bit (avoids using it overhead, stops exercising, etc) As time goes, the capsule gets stiff, he/she shows up to doc complaining of a stiff/painful shoulder…diagnosed with a “frozen shoulder”. Most athletic/active folks who get true frozen shoulder, get it post operatively (SLAP repair, cuff repair) or post traumatic immobilization (fractured clavicle or AC separation that sits in a sling and gets “frozen”. Hope this makes sense.
Interesting, thanks very much for your insights!!!
Wanted to reach out to the ST community here to see if anyone has gone/going through “frozen shoulder” /adhesive capsulitis? I have completed 9+ weeks of PT, including home PT exercise, and had a cocktail injection two weeks ago. I also started swimming again, but man that is still a bit rough. Just looking to see how long it took you to recover from this diagnosis? Did you find any particular exercises or stretches to benefit you during your recovery?
Thanks for sharing.
Have treated many of these over the years. Definitely can be a frustration, hang in there. True adhesive capsulitis can have an odd progression at time.
Really it will depend what stage of recovery you are in determining how much longer. Think of it as 3 phases. 1) Freezing stage, 2) Frozen stage 3) Thawing stage. The exercise prescription will depend on what phase you are in. I’m assuming that since you are swimming again, you have back MOST of your ROM (so the “thawing” phase) In that case the capsule is likely loosening up some…so estimate 2-3 more weeks (rough guess).
Since you have treated many frozen cases, do you think that a swimmer doing 6-7 days/wk would ever get frozen shoulder??? It seems to me that doing 1000 or so reps with each arm in a 3000-5000 m workout each day would make getting frozen shoulder highly unlikely, but this is just my engineer, non-PT opinion. Your thoughts???
Frozen shoulder typically doesn’t affect athletic/active folks, but it’s not unheard of. When I get a PT script for “frozen shoulder” honestly, 50% of the time it’s not a typical frozen shoulder…it’s just a bit of a stiff inferior/posterior caspule (they present differently). I can see this etiology though:…Said patient (swimmer, triathlete) gets a bit of an overuse tendinopathy, it becomes painful to use the arm, he/she starts to protect the arm a bit (avoids using it overhead, stops exercising, etc) As time goes, the capsule gets stiff, he/she shows up to doc complaining of a stiff/painful shoulder…diagnosed with a “frozen shoulder”. Most athletic/active folks who get true frozen shoulder, get it post operatively (SLAP repair, cuff repair) or post traumatic immobilization (fractured clavicle or AC separation that sits in a sling and gets “frozen”. Hope this makes sense.
Funny you mention the part about post operatively, as I had left wrist surgery just prior to my left shoulder freezing up. I had no previous issues with my left shoulder as I was swimming plenty prior to it potentially freezing. It was only after the my scapholunate ligament reconsturtion did it give me trouble. I’m guessing during the recovery period of the wrist surgery, did the shoulder start to freeze.
Incorporated some of the hanging exercises that were mentioned previous in this thread and that seems to really help. Thanks for the support…
These guys are kinda hokey, but surprisingly this helped my recent shoulder issue:
Thank you…several months of nagging pain, just started physio, going to check this out too
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