Frozen Shoulder

A peculiar affliction of which I am now the proud owner. It’s also known as adhesive capsulitis.

Frozen shoulder, also known as Adhesive Capsulitis, is a condition that affects the shoulder joint capsule and results in loss of movement and pain in the shoulder joint. It is different from rotator cuff injury or shoulder tendonitis in that frozen shoulder affects the joint capsule, whereas the other two conditions affect the muscles and tendons of the shoulder joint.

The shoulder is made up of three bones, and the tendons of four muscles (tendons attach muscle to bone.) The bones are called the “scapula,” the “humerus” and the “clavicle.” In layman’s terms, these are called the shoulder blade, the upper arm bone and the collarbone, respectively. The joints are the acromio-clavicular joint, the sterno-clavicular joint and the glenohumeral joint (where the humerus bone articulates with the socket of the shoulder blade).

Frozen shoulder occurs when there is inflammation of the capsule of the glenohumeral joint, which can result in the capsule surrounding the glenohumeral joint forming adhesions with the head of the humerous.

Frozen shoulder often occurs after another shoulder injury like rotator cuff sprain, that isn’t adequately treated.

The most common symptoms of frozen shoulder are severe pain and difficulty raising the arm in any direction.  Mine is a left shoulder problem. This manifests itself in two ways. Reaching into the back seat of the car from the driver’s seat – that’s really painful, as it reversing whereby you rest your arm on the passenger seat.

The other, weirder, and more annoying one is that I’m a right arm first dresser. And I have to daily remind myself that left arm has to go in first, since the restricted range of movement means I can’t do that bent elbow sweeping motion thing to get my left arm in the empty sleeve. As for wearing a t-shirt or polo shirt – I’ve had to ask for assistance in getting undressed the restricted range of moment is so great.

And yesterday I discovered that if you stand with your arm straight out from your side in the classical T shape I can’t actually raise my left arm any higher than vertical. I become a weird reverse L shape, which means I have to give up my position in the Village People Tribute band as the Indian and take on the letter C instead, dressed as a police man.

Can be doing this

I can't be doing this 😦

• In stage one, (the freezing phase) the patient begins to develop pain and stiffness in the shoulder joint. This stage can last up to four months.
• In stage two, (the frozen phase) the difficulty moving the arm remains but the pain begins to decline. This stage can last from four months to nearly a year.
• In stage three, (the thawing phase) the full range of movement begins to return to the shoulder joint. This stage can last four months.

Without adequate treatment, most sufferers of frozen shoulder will be fully recovered in 12 to 18 months but some cases have lasted for up to three years, although these are extremely rare. With suitable treatment, most cases will clear up in 3 to 6 months.

Sleeping is a painful experience and makes for uncomfortable re-adjustment of your sleeping position and pattern. Pain control is optional and lucky I have a sedentary desk job that involves a lot of typing and sitting.

And as for softball this year, that’ll be a no then