The frozen shoulder's patients are often women in there 40s and 50s who experience increasing shoulder pain that keeps them awake at night. The uneasiness begins as an ache or flaming and slowly advances to a sharp pain when they lift their arm. Sometimes they cannot raise their arm above the waist and completely lose their range of motion. The shoulder joint is frozen. Full recovery can take months, even a year or more but if the condition is caught untimely improvement can be much quicker. Frozen shoulder is fairly common but not all that well recognized by lay people or even by primary care doctors. The patients often go to the doctors after they had had it a while, or it has been misdiagnosed as bursitis or rotator cuff injury and they have not found any relief.

Common misdiagnosis:

Repeatedly the problem is mistaken for a rotator cuff injury and some patients have even had surgery that really can make frozen shoulder worse. In both cases, the condition can come on suddenly and improve very gradually over time on its own, with the right exercises and physical therapy. It is an unrelieved state that takes a long time to get better. But in the society, people do not have the patience and want the doctor to wave a magic wand. In both shoulder and back injuries, surgery often is recommended only in cases where the pain is unbearable or the complexity in moving is unmanageable. Frozen shoulder is also called adhesive capsulitis. The shoulder capsules either contracts or becomes swollen causing adhesions and scarring. The shoulder bones, connected by ligaments that condense are unable to move freely within the shoulder joint.

Correct diagnosis:

Most treatments include moving and stretching the shoulder muscles which is not what most people naturally do when their shoulder starts to hurt and stiffen. If they do not seek medical attention, the problem can intensify. In most cases, however, frozen shoulder is diagnoses from the pattern of symptoms. The age of the patient, if they have pain or rigidity, if their sleep has been interrupted by the discomfort, if they have incomplete mobility when reaching for a shelf or putting on their jacket, whether they are obese or have diabetes. Another sign is whether the pain was more acute earlier on and has settled into mostly stiffness with sharp pain only while reaching or making some other abrupt motion with the arm.