Frozen Shoulders

Adhesive capsulitis or frozen shoulder is a condition where a person finds it unable in moving his shoulders.

The person suffering from this condition feels a stiffness of the shoulder associated with a pain. This in turn will cause a reduction in the movement of the shoulder joints. In certain cases, the entire movement of the shoulder will be restricted.

This condition is more common to women than men. People who have heart disease or diabetes are the ones who normally have frozen shoulders.

Frozen shoulders can be treated using analgesics, physiotherapy or even surgery.

Symptoms

Symptoms associated with frozen shoulders will progress slowly and spreads for over months or even years. There are three stages where one experiences the symptoms. These are:

The person will start experiencing the stiffness and pain of the shoulders in stage one. This lasts for about two to nine months.
The second stage is also known as adhesive stage where the stiffness of the shoulders increases. But the muscles start wasting as they had been idle. This stage will be there for almost four to twelve months.
The third stage is characterised by the slow recovery with the ability to move the shoulders. The pain slowly disappears, but it recurs along with the easing of the stiffness. This stage lasts for five months to four or five years.

Causes

A person suffering from frozen shoulder will have mass of scar tissues on the capsule of the shoulders. This will result in the thickening, swelling and tightening of the shoulder capsule. So there will not be enough space for the upper arm bone present in the joint. This causes the movement to become very restricted and painful.

A person may develop a frozen shoulder once he has an injury to the arm or shoulders like a fracture of the bones or the person has undergone surgery in the shoulders.

A person having diabetes is subjected to the development of frozen shoulders four times more than in a normal person. The symptoms of frozen shoulders in a person having diabetes are more severe than in normal conditions.

The person who may have one of the following conditions is subjected to a high risk of developing frozen shoulder:

• heart diseases or lung diseases
• hyperthyroidism
• Parkinson’s disease
• stroke

Treatment

The treatment of frozen shoulders depends on

the stage of the frozen shoulder
the level of pain experienced by the sufferer and
The severity of stiffness felt.

Analgesics like ibuprofen or paracetamol are advised if the pain is mild. In cases of severe pain, the use of anti-inflammatory analgesics is advised to get relief from the pain as well as swelling.

Corticosteroid injections may be advised in cases where the anti-inflammatory drugs fail. They are effective for treating the first stage of frozen shoulders to ease the stiffness and pain.

Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation is a method of physiotherapy which is used for easing the pain felt due to frozen shoulder. The nerve endings of the spinal cord controlling the pain are numbed.

Shoulder exercises along with physiotherapy help in an improved movement of the shoulders.

If none of the above mentioned steps prove effective, then the final option is to undergo arthroscopic capsular release surgery.