How to allievate frozen shoulder pain?
Monday, September 21st, 2009 at
9:16 pm
My mother developed a frozen shoulder and is in some pain – does anyone have any tips on what can be done to help ease the pain.
She has been given some tablets (which I think are inflammatries) by the doctor, but the pain is really getting her down.
Most sites that I googled seem to just try and sell products or services.
Filed under: Shoulder Blade Pain
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Your mother has my most sincere sympathy. Frozen shoulder is certainly a frustrating and painful problem. I have been through that with both of my shoulders – not much fun – but they are back to normal now.
The anti-inflammatory medications are a common treatment. They may or may not help your mother – I hope they do. The usual treatment involves physical therapy and exercises to keep the shoulder mobile and flexible. Even though it can be very painful to move the joint, it is very important to keep moving the joint so that the problem does not become worse.
If your mother can go to a physical therapist, then she will be able to get personal advice about stretching, bending, and pushing the shoulder joint through a range of motion. It is undeniably painful when starting, but continued use of the exercises will make it easier.
Frozen shoulder can sometimes resolve itself spontaneously – but that may not occur for a year or more, which is a long time to wait in pain.
I have included various links below to sites that are (mostly) not trying to sell anything. Some have descriptions of exercises that your mother can try. There are many different shoulder exercises, and what I found only show a few.
Good luck to her!
Get her doctor to refer her to an osteopath. They can dramatically reduce the time the shoulder will remain frozen for.
Other than that the only things that I found helped were using anti-inflammatory gel such as Ibuleve and a product which contains magnets in a warm wrap (like this one http://www.magnetictherapy.co.uk/scp/BODY_WRAPS_%28Flexible%29/Flexible_Magnetic_Shoulder_Support.html) – the magnets seem to help as does having a firm, warm support.
The pain cycle of the frozen shoulder can last a variable time – anywhere from 6 months to 3 years. I hope your mum is at the shorter end of that – I wasn’t!