About 2-5% of people will deal with frozen shoulders at some point in their lives. It isn’t a condition that happens out of nowhere, though. It slowly starts when the protective covering on the shoulder called the capsule, gets thicker and tighter. This makes it harder for you to move your shoulder. Over time, it becomes really hard to do something as simple as brushing your hair. The first step to treating this condition is to diagnose it. Afterwards, the doctor will treat you accordingly.
Diagnosis of Frozen Shoulders
The first step in diagnosing a frozen shoulder is undergoing a physical examination. In this process, the doctor will ask you about your symptoms and how long you’ve been in pain or stiffness in your shoulder. Frozen shoulder has different stages: freezing stage, freezing stage, and thawing stage. Each of them lasts for several weeks to months, and from months to a year, respectively. However, the pain starts to subside in the thawing stage.
During this, the doctor will test your range of motion by asking you to move your arm in different directions to see how far it can go. If it is painful or hard to move your arms, this is a sign that you might have a frozen shoulder. The doctor will also check if your shoulder is tender. They will press on certain areas of your shoulder to see if it hurts. If you feel pain in the area when they press, it is another clue that you may have a frozen shoulder. However, these pointers aren’t a sure indicator that you really have a frozen shoulder.
The doctor will go further to order some imaging tests to get a better look. An X-ray is often the first test, which is used to make sure that there are no broken bones or other problems with the bones in your shoulder. Nevertheless, an x-ray can’t show soft tissues like muscles or ligaments. If the doctor needs a clearer picture of the soft tissue, they might order an MRI, which is short for Magnetic Resonance Imaging. An MRI would give a detailed image of your shoulder’s soft tissues, like the capsule around the joint.
This will help the doctors to see if it is thickening or tightening, which is one of the symptoms that happens with frozen shoulders. This test then helps confirm the diagnosis and make sure there is nothing else causing the pain.
Treatment of Frozen Shoulder
There are different ways doctors treat a frozen shoulder, and most people start with what is called a conservation treatment, which are non-surgical methods.
Pain Medications: When your shoulder is hurting a lot and you find it difficult to move, the first thing your doctor might recommend is a pain reliever. Usually you can start with over-the-counter medications like Ibuprofen or acetaminophen, which will help reduce the pain and inflammation. If the pain is really bad, which is typical in some stages of a frozen shoulder, the doctor could give you something stronger like prescription painkillers to help you get through the worst of it.
Physical Therapy: Physical therapy is a huge part of treating frozen shoulders. This type of treatment is all about exercises and stretches that help your shoulder to move more easily. A physical therapist will guide you through different exercises that will help to improve your flexibility in the shoulder and reduce stiffness. At first, you might not be able to move your shoulder very much, but over time, these exercises will slowly help you regain your range of motion (meaning that you will be able to move your arms straight, left or right.)
Corticosteroid Injections: If the pain and stiffness don’t get better with the pain medication and physical therapy you do, doctors might suggest something a little stronger like corticosteroid injections.
These are shots of powerful anti-inflammatory medicines that go directly into your shoulder joints. They can help reduce the pain and swelling, which makes it easier for you to do physical therapy exercises and get your shoulders moving again.
But in a case where none of these treatments work, and the frozen sugar is still causing a big problem in your daily life, after months of trying other options, the doctor might suggest surgery.
Arthroscopic release is a type of surgery that might be used for people who still have major problems with their frozen shoulders. In this procedure, the doctor makes small incisions in your skin and uses surgical tools to go into your shoulder.
The goal is to loosen or remove the thickened tissue that’s making it hard to move your shoulder. This surgery helps restore motion and reduces pain, but it’s typically only done when other surgery fails. In most cases, people don’t need surgery. They just need to stick with pain medication, physical therapy, and sometimes corticosteroid injections.
Bottom Line
When you have a frozen shoulder, your shoulder becomes painful and stiff, making it difficult to do everyday chores. In addition to a physical examination, procedures like MRIs and X-rays are used to diagnose it. Usually, surgery is only required if other treatments like: pain meds, therapy, and injections, fail after a few months. With non-surgical therapy, the majority of people recover.
