What You Need to Know About Adhesive Capsulitis

Frozen shoulder pain can be debilitating. In this article we’re going to look at what causes frozen shoulder, how you would get diagnosed with frozen shoulder, and what your options are if you have pain from Frozen shoulder.

Starting off, what is Frozen shoulder? Frozen shoulder is basically just chronic stiffness of your shoulder joint. From a anatomical perspecitve the stiffness is from between your upper arm and shoulder blade. Frozen shoulder can come on after a period of disuse of the arm. Unfortunately frozen shoulder can appear for no obvious reason. Frozen shoulder can be particularly severe in individuals with diabetes.

According to the University of Washington Department of Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine there are three different areas that used to diagnose Adhesive Capsulitis:

A. History

1. Functionally significant restriction of shoulder motion

2. Absence of history of previous major shoulder injury or surgery

B. Physical examination

1. Limited glenohumeral motion in all directions

C. Radiographs

1. No changes in cartilaginous joint space

2. Absence of pathological changes other than osteopenia

If you have Adhesive Capsulitis then you have a couple different options in regard how to get rid of it. You can get surgery. 20 out of 100 people will fall into this category. That means that 80% of the time your don’t need surgery to get rid of frozen shoulder. In regards to treatment what are your options if you don’t want surgery? There are a handful of frozen shoulder exercises that you can perform and specific movements that anyone can use to free up their shoulder. While this may sound complicated, if you have proper guidance, it is pretty simple and can be done in your own home.

To conlude. Frozen shoulder is essentially another way of describing long term shoulder stiffness. There are specific criteria in regards to your medical history, shoulder movement, and radiograph findings that if met would give you the official ‘frozen shoulder’ diagnosis. You don’t always need surgery to get rid of Adhesive Capsulitis, instead you can use exercises and soft tissue (i.e. massage techniques) to stop pain and gain motion back in your shoulder.

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